Operation: Create a Candle Line
Mission: Create product labels and brochures
Driving home from work, I noticed a new little store in the shopping strip along the service road. At first, I thought it was an antique or knick-knack store because of its name (Enchantments and Oddities), and the sign has what looks like a sailboat from the road. However, curiosity got the better of me, so I searched for the store on Google and found out it’s the first metaphysical shop in my suburban bible-belt town. The sailboat is actually a stereotypical witch’s hat.
Metaphysical shops are great for those of us who want to be more in tune with our spiritual side, our “essence,” if you will. Regardless of religion, these outlets have the resources to help anyone feel more aligned with themselves. Thus, I felt inspired to create product labels for a (hypothetical) metaphysical candle line. This line incorporates the art and science of herbs and essential oils with the energy of the natural world. Together, these puzzle pieces form a line of intention candles. To manifest these intentions, the user carves their name into the candle, invokes their intentions (be it a blessing, mantra, or internal visualization), and burns the candle a little every day.
Conjuring up the theme for this line offered me some distinct directions. Do I want ethereal candles? Something gothic and bold? Natural, organic forms? The candle “competition” in this store mainly references pentagrams or Celtic themes. So I started playing around with ethereal vibes for something mystical and almost delicate. When ethereal became too intertwined with the more mysterious and magical aspects of intention candles, I turned to nature for inspiration. I needed something that evoked autumn leaves or a gentle stream.
The Enchantments shop has aquamarine stones in a bowl made from a tree trunk, so I use the rich turquoise color of the stones as one of my logo colors. I also chose umber to symbolize trees and falling leaves. With the colors selected, I focused on an earthy logo. What better way to represent the beauty of nature than with a logo resembling the tree of life? The brand name had to be simple and organic: in my head, I crossed “earthy” with “barren.” Barren wasn’t necessarily the vibe I wanted, but I liked the sound of “earthen.” Earthen felt huskier, warm, and signaled an “of the earth” meaning.
Now, to brainstorm intentions: wisdom, healing, money, power? The most popular intention candles are “money draw” or “prosperity,” but some candles had some creative names like “bitch be gone” banishing candles. This line calls for the basics, so I used healing, harmony, intuition, manifesting a miracle, love, and protection. Of course, after I planned out my intentions, I had to coordinate which herbs or essential oils would be most prominent for each candle. I took the basic shape and layout of a cosmetics tube label from Canva and created a label based on natural forms. With the individual intentions, the illustrations got more creative, but I wanted to keep them simple. Every competition candle cautioned against lighting the candles before removing the label and leaving burning candles unattended, so I followed suit.
To promote this new candle line, I created a brochure. Again, I kept the simplistic goals in mind while creating the layout. I considered highlighting each candles characteristics, but that felt too detailed and crowded. Instead, I focused on the main message: "inspired by nature." Without an actual product, I can't easily photograph the different candles. Instead, I used Artboard Studio to create candle mockups for the brochure. (The site is finicky, but free to use.)
When I finished the brochures, I went back to Artboard Studio to create these brochure mockups. Voila! Now, I might consider making a candle line.
