by Valerie Burgess,
March 22, 2022
Adding Visual Spice
In 2022 we did an entire rebrand for SoSS, a hot sauce company in Charlottesville, VA owned by Tommy Terrell. When he first came to us it wasn’t for the rebrand itself, but for a smaller project focused on brand illustrations. All the work we ended up doing with SoSS started with a vision Tommy had for some new merch to beef out the existing brand. He reached out to me with a very clear idea and a few references: Art Nouveau inspired botanical illustrations for each flavor in the SoSS Trinity (Purple, Orange, and Green), featuring the fruits and spices he works with.
“I like the arched frames of the top samples in this image, but I think the designs I’d want to see would be more complex than these, so that the viewer could find new things hidden within the design the more they looked at it. […] I want these designs to really draw people in and make a lasting impression.”
-Tommy Terrell, owner of SoSS
reference images that SoSS provided
Inspired by Botanists
One major source of inspiration for me during this project were botanical illustrations; scientific illustrations that capture the anatomy of the subject, often from the roots to the bloom. Not only do they show several aspects of a plant in one image, they also capture a graceful realism in the folds of the leaves and heft of the fruit. My goal was to find some in between of these heavily realistic images and the flat surrealism of the Art Nouveau references Tommy gave me while creating a visual complexity that pulls a viewer in.
Knowing that the final SoSS designs would be printed in a single color, we had to determine which aspects of the Art Nouveau designs could be carried over. The details that stuck out to me were the symmetry of the designs, the flat perspective, and the careful use of shading to highlight the forms’ curves. I tried to keep these qualities in mind when working on the initial sketches.
Finding the Forms
I always start my projects with an initial layout sketch to solidify design content. This ensures I’m on the same page as my client before we move onto the more time consuming parts of the illustration. No one likes to get to the final draft stage just to hear half of the items in the design need to be removed or changed! Working with a (digital) pencil, I mapped out rough forms and placement for the variety of fruits and vegetables. My goal was to include the full spectrum of plant anatomy a la botanical illustrations. This means capturing not just the fruiting parts of the plants but the leaves, flowers, and roots as well. My thinking was that this would give the complexity that Tommy was looking for. Tucked into the design are the leaves and flowers of a mustard plant in Green, the palm fronds from a date tree in Orange, and the ginger flower and leaves in Purple. As I worked through each one I found three primary design paths we could take.
Initial sketches: purple, orange, green (left to right)
My sketching process started with Purple. Using the symmetry tool in Procreate I wove together the habanero plant, beets greens, and knobs of ginger. Since I was using the in-app symmetry tool, the design ended up completely symmetrical. When I moved onto Orange I realized pure symmetry was too visually predictable, so I thought to highlight the primary flavors from the bottle as an asymmetrical piece. The tomatoes, yams, and maple leaves have their own spotlight on the top half with the supporting flavors beneath. Dreading the dense foliage of dill, I saved Green for last. This design is where I found a sweet spot, landing somewhere between the perfect symmetry of the Purple sketch and the poorly balanced asymmetry of the Orange sketch. The sketch for Green included the central element highlighting the Serrano peppers, dill, and cucumbers, but it’s nestled within a symmetrical frame of the other ingredients. The balanced framing pieces present the illustration as a cohesive whole, while the slight inconsistencies in the primary flavor highlight pull your eyes in closer.
After sharing these with Tommy, we agreed the last direction spoke to the design brief the most. The Purple and Orange drawings were reworked to match the framing skeleton of Green. We also landed on using a shading style that referenced the dense, fine stipple patterns used in traditional tattoo work over a bulky, more whimsical stipple pattern.
Updated sketches: purple, orange, green (left to right)
Fig. A →
Fig. A: SPARSE STIPPLING (FEWER DOTS, MORE SPACED OUT): CLUNKIER, MORE WHIMSICAL, VISUALLY LIGHTER, LESS EFFECTIVELY COMMUNICATES FORM
Fig. B: DENSE STIPPLING (MORE DOTS, PACKED TIGHTER): REFERENTIAL OF TRADITIONAL TATtoO WORK, VISUALLY HEAVIER BUT ACHIEVES MORE DELICATE SHADING
← Fig. B
[LEFT] SPARSE STIPPLING (FEWER DOTS, MORE SPACED OUT): CLUNKIER, MORE WHIMSICAL, VISUALLY LIGHTER, LESS EFFECTIVELY COMMUNICATES FORM
[RIGHT] DENSE STIPPLING (MORE DOTS, PACKED TIGHTER): REFERENTIAL OF TRADITIONAL TATOOO WORK VISUALLY HEAVIER BUT ACHIEVES MORE DELICATE SHADING
Finalizing the Vision
To finalize the illustrations, I needed to completely redraw the lines using my sketches as a tracing reference. Since Tommy was planning to screen print these designs, the lines needed to be thicker and fully opaque. I decided to use a brush with minimal line weight variation: the Procreate default brush “Studio Pen.” This choice kept the lines bold enough for printing but still allowed a slight hand drawn touch from the shifts in my drawing pressure. The lack of monoweight lines adds a softer, flowing touch that reminded me of the Art Nouveau references we started with.
Adding the stipple shading was challenging for the smaller pieces of the illustration, especially since I couldn’t change the size of my brush without affecting the density of the stippling. Utilizing the color fill tool and an invisible layer, I drew selection fields for all of the fruits and flora. This gave me a map I could select to isolate each form and shade them without overlapping onto other stippled areas. Working from the edges and corners of the shapes, I used a True Grit Texture Supply stippling brush to push in tonal variation.
Application
The initial plan for these designs was to have a suite of illustrations that could be printed on any merchandise. Tommy planned to make T-shirts, sweatshirts, tote bags, and more. When Big Fog rebranded SoSS in 2022 we found another great use for them: the new SoSS Trinity product labels. We centered the illustrations on the front of the label with the flavor name overlapping the shape. Some minor adjustments were made to the illustrations to make a space in the bottom section where we could tuck in text indicating heat level and the main flavor notes.
Takeaways
Creating the SoSS brand illustrations with the vision Tommy provided was an exciting challenge. When a client comes with a visual reference that can’t be exactly recreated, it’s interesting to see which parts of that initial visual make it into the final design. As with any project, reflecting on it brings to attention missed details or more effective visual changes that could have been made. If I could revisit these, I would add more loose and flowing decorative line work to add weight to the Art Nouveau style reference. But overall, I’m really happy with how these drawings came out and how they led to the new SoSS brand identity.
Drawing tools
Procreate on iPad Pro & Apple Pencil | Brushes: 6B pencil (sketches), Studio Pen (refinement), Stipple Studio Pin Liner 0.1 Spray Regular by True Grit Texture Supply (stippling).
