StrangeLove Mixers

Creative Agency: Marx Design
Photography: Duncan Innes
Illustration: Grant Reed
Project Type: Produced, Commercial Work
Client: StrangeLove
Location: Australia
Packaging Contents: Beverage
Packaging Materials: Glass

Strangelove is Australia’s first organic craft mixer company. They felt the mixer category for bars had become commoditized and boring while the alcohol brands were becoming sexier. Instead of product innovation, Strangelove looked back to the times where tonics and elixirs reigned supreme and were crafted by apothecaries.

Their brand is built around mankind’s inner-conflicts – self-preservation versus the self-destructive yearnings of a liver-destroying Friday night. Our challenge was to reflect the premium, organic and exotically flavoured nature of the mixers and the darker aspects of the brand. With no advertising campaign, the packaging would have to work hard. We decided to lure consumers with an image and once intrigued, tell the story to bring the brand’s essence to life. The colour palette was inspired by 1950’s cocktail hours – classy but slightly sleazy. An expert illustrator hand-rendered the illustrations – the Dirty Tonic lipstick looks like an indication of class; with smudged lipstick hinting at a seedier underbelly. The post-modern type adds a premium touch.

In the spirit of the apothecaries we also designed Italian bottleneck stippling; therefore we were able to make Strangelove’s newest range of tonics, as strange and intriguing as the brand that created it.