Solar Swirls
Swirled Pudding
Packaging Design
Mascot Driven Packaging
Solar Swirls is a vibrant, mascot-driven children’s pudding brand with fun, and playful flavor swirls. At the heart of the brand is Arlo the Anteater, a character inspired by my favorite childhood space heroes, such as Buzz Lightyear and Samus Aran. Arlo’s long anteater tongue is a nod to the most fun part of eating pudding—licking the lid!
Succesful children’s packaging treads the fine line that is capturing a child’s imagination and a parent’s approval. Well established pudding brands have stuck to a less extravagant design language compared to similar markets such as cereal.
This presented an opportunity to shift the focus of pudding packaging in a more playful direction, developing a brand with a recognizable mascot that would set Solar Swirls apart from its competitors on the shelf. Solar Swirl’s unique take on pudding is the swirled flavors. It’s common to see layered chocolate and vanilla pudding cups, why not turn this into a visual element? Use flavors with saturated colors and flavors, the swirls are reminiscent of a spiral galaxy, a perfect setting for a space ranger mascot.
Playful type and floating flavors helped establish the setting and a sense of movement in the design. Maximizing space on the front of the left little room to add a violator to the design. The empty space in the dieline for the pudding cups left enough room to add a hanging violator in the shape of a comet that thematically matches the outer space theme.