Hello, and nice to meet you! My name is Liz Li.
I’m a graphic designer specializing in books and branding.
Welcome to my portfolio!
Wong Kar Wai
Series branding
- 4″ wide x 3.5″ tall x 1.5” deep
- 4c offset printed box w/spot gloss; 1c printed tickets
- Hexagonal box containing a roll of 200 perforated tickets
- Publisher: Chronicle Books
- Role: branding, packaging, & editorial design, illustration
- Collaborators: Kayla Ferreria (Design Coordinator), Natalie Butterfield (Editor), Michelle Clair (Production), Sara Schneider (Creative Director)
- Typeface(s): Rammus Display, Hatfield Park Pro, Category
Take-a-Ticket is a gift format series from Chronicle Books that offers 200 tickets inside a hexagonal box. Each title in the series offers a quick infusion of positivity into your day. Each heagonal box contains a roll of 200 perforated tickets with affirmations, tear-able puns, or prompts for creative inspiration.
I joined this project shortly after the ideation phase where the product was drempt up by the wonderful brain of Kayla Ferreria. She handed me a printer’s mockup and a big branding task: Design a distinct and unique brand for this new ticket-in-a-box gift series from Chonicle Books.
When it comes to designing branding for a products series, I think it’s important to see what already exists in the world, and how I can make this particular product stand out visually. When starting a new project, I like to meet with the team and collectively establish what the mood of this brand should be. Should it be light-hearted or serious? Bright or muted? Loud or subtle?
We already knew that our first three titles in the series would be Affirmations, Dad Jokes, and Creativity, so we researched what already existed in those content genres and what already exists in the giftable ticket realm.
We saw that existing products either looked extremely dated, or they referenced a vintage visual vernacular.
Tickets are an inherently dated item—but not in a bad way. In an age where movie tickets, public transport passes, and concert tickets have gone electronic, the paper ticket has become a token of nostalgia. The team and I decided to take advantage of this nostalgia factor by pursuing a retro-inspired direction informed by sign painting and vintage cartoons.
Additionally, The team and I also thought this product could be packaged as a self care product, so we wanted to explore a direction that aligned with the mental-wellness community. This particular online niche has grown exponentially, and the other products we researched above did not take this direction. Because of that, we decided it was worth pursuing, so I also collected references for this direction.
For this particular product, we knew that this was a series with a wide range of topics, so one of my goals and challenges in this project was to create a flexible brand where each title in the series looks distinct yet easily identifiable as part of the greater brand. I chose to do this through the use of a different limited color palette for each title while keeping the typefaces consistent.
There was still the overall look of the brand to craft. Publishers (and clients in general) love to see options—so I drafted a number of different covers inspired by the two directions that the team and I initially moodboarded.
When designing a character, it is important that it embodies the qualities of the brand. With this direction, I wanted to incorporate a retro-inspired illustration that both matched the sign-painterly script font and also contrasted the more modern title and subtitle typefaces.
While I thought the faces and poses of the characters matched the personality of the brand, I thought that the circular body shape still left something to be desired. I decided to go with a ticket shape to reference the inside tickets of the product.
This mascot is another element of the branding that could flex to show off the unique personality of each title, while the illustration style and shape of the character maintained the consistency of the brand.
After presenting to the creative director, the options were narrowed down to these four, which I further refined in preparation for a presentation to sales and marketing executives. For this presentation, we decided to go with 4 different directions that appealed to different aesthetics: (1) a trendy type on curving lines direction, (2) a sophisitcated gradient direction, (3) a trendy color blocking direction with a clean sans serif typeface, and (4) a retro-inpired illustrated direction.
Step 4: All in the details
After presenting to sales and marketing, they overwhelmingly favored the illustrated direction. The team and I were happy to hear this, as we thought the ticket character and vintage inpired design instantly communicated the concept of this product to those who were unfamilair. We all agreed that this visual language matched and even bolstered the impulse-buy nature of this product. However, like every design project, there were still refinements to be made.
In addition to changing the title from “Take What You Need” to “Take-a-Ticket”, I also received feedback that the script font used for this title was not as legible as it could be. If wanted to use a script font for the brand, I needed to find one that had the right personality while still being legible at a small scale. Working closely with the creative director, I tried a variety of scripts until I found the right one.
After these script explorations, the creative director and I decided that Hatfield Park Pro (second row, third from left) had the right balance of personality and legibility for the job. With a few tweaks to the ‘T’ ad ‘a’, the Take-a-Ticket logo was complete.
Step 5: Build out the brand
With our visual direction finalized, all that was left to keep building out the rest of the brand elements in accordance with the cover direction that was selected. Taking inpiration from retro illustrations and sign painting, I decided to match this vintage-yet-modern direction with a checkerboard pattern.
.
After establishing these elements, I applied them to the packaging of the first three titles in the series—Affirmations, Dad Jokes, and Creativity.
One of the most important lessons I’ve learned in this process has been learning to view limitations as an opportunity to grow and improve. As with any design project, physical or digital, iteration is part of the process and always makes the end product stronger. Critique of the original circle illustration pushed me to find a much more appropriate shape for the mascot. With the “Take-a-Ticket” script explorations, criticism of the original typeface led to a far more unique, fitting solution. Most of all, this project has reminded me that the answer “No” can be reframed as an opportunity to grow and strengthen my designs.
Take-a-Ticket’s mission is to provide bursts of joy, motivation, and humor to the everyday life, which are all core values of my own creative practice. As I move forward with my career, I aim to build on my brand design skills and become a better overall designer!
Thank you for viewing!