PROCESS

The briefing of this project was to create an experience that bridged the gap between the digital aspects of the project and the physical aspects, in order to create a seamless experience. The event I choose was the prohibition themed “Raise a Glass to the Past” event, at the Mob Museum in Las Vegas, so the concept was to use the idea of smuggling as an underlying theme.

As someone who is fascinated by history, I was intrigued by the idea of how people use to smuggle alcohol into restaurants, businesses, and personal homes. As I conducted my research, I discovered that many people would disguise their alcohol as prescription medicine. This was because real prescriptions alcohol was not allowed to be banned, making it still legal. I decided to base my project on this idea which carried throughout the invite, app, and packaging to make it seem as real as possible. It was important to me to have as much historic detail in my project as possible, so I looked at a lot of old prohibition medicines and packaging design for inspiration.

This eventually leads me to create a system of type and vector graphics that mimicked closely with the style that was used around Prohibition. I was inspired by vintage 1920s medicine packaging, both the pharmacy proscribed and the look-alike medical whiskey packaging. I choose typefaces that looked similar to the ones that were used in these old packages to make it look more realistic. The color red was used to bring in the aspect of medication as a symbolic color that we identify with today for the same reason.