Featured Project: Branding and Packaging for Simply Yolanda

When award-winning gospel singer Yolanda Adams came to MTS for help with branding and packaging her signature line of body products, we were excited to pull together and direct the right team to get the job done. Leveraging our relationships has always been our strong suit, and we knew calling in our friends at 4O1! Creative was the right partner to bring in for branding and logo design.

Yolanda’s vision was to have her brand express the refreshing, nurturing, and protective elements present in her high-end line of personal care products, while keeping in line with her polished and feminine persona. Our goal was to meet Yolanda’s visual expectations while considering the technical aspects of product packaging.

Branding is a collaborative process, so we began with a discovery phase determining Yolanda’s hard and soft requirements. Based on discovery, our team designed over 40 logo samples, and after a team review with MTS and some refinement, a selection was sent for consideration. After conferring with the client, the elements that best suited the application and reflected the brand direction were combined into the final design. The original concept, based on Yolanda’s signature and a sampling of custom designed flowers, appeared in the final logo design after exploring options to translate across web, print, and the physical products.

Given the visual and technical requirements involved in labeling and the product line’s multiple package shapes and sizes, there were some positioning challenges to be met. With ingredients, product explanation, and branding present, a considerable amount of text was needed on each label, so many configurations were explored and prototyped to get it just right. Since the packaging was clear plastic, we also needed to coordinate the outer label with the color of body washes and lotions to ensure a good match with the creative. Viewing samples on screen or in flat print doesn’t give the same feeling as an actual label wrapped around a bottle, fortunately our experience allowed us to plan for the final product before seeing it translated in production.

Before the Simply Yolanda products were released for production, packaging prototypes were needed to create marketing collateral for advertisement and a subsequent launch party.  MTS printed the artwork on adhesive stock and utilized our in-house CNC paper cutting machine to create the labels of the final shape more quickly than the label manufacturer could deliver proofs.

The finished labels were printed with a six-color process, and attention to detail was required to make the most of the colors available to create a sophisticated design that worked visually and technically with labels for each of the three product types and two varieties were successfully delivered to the client to take to market.

We enjoyed working with Yolanda’s marketing team in a collaborative concert while directing our creative, print, and packaging teams to bring Simply Yolanda to life. The resulting branding and packaging of Yolanda’s line is impressive, and are celebrated on her website, simplyyolanda.com.

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