Cherry Birch General

The project began by exploring how Cherry Birch General could begin building a house brand that could coexist alongside the wide range of other products that made the Hamilton shop distinctive. Visual inspiration came from nature, William Morris patterns, apothecary labels, modern illustration and from some of the Canadian specialty goods carried at the store. The challenge was to create a modular packaging design direction that felt artisanal but not “crafty”, clean but not generic, and flexible enough to support candles, hand soaps, bath products, pantry items, and seasonal product launches.

A quirky custom-illustration approach that turns birch bark into playful creatures, giving the product line handmade character, shelf impact, and a distinctive visual language without relying on familiar small-batch packaging clichés.

This approach was aimed at the challenge of expansion: one consistent packaging architecture that could support many products and scents, while small colour-coded labels handled seasonal variation, scent personality, and cost-effective production.

Inspired by William Morris patterns this approach was intended to give immediate credibility, beauty, and gift appeal by drawing on a familiar decorative language associated with craft, heritage and home.

Also inspired by Morris patterns, the approach focused directly on the concept of a Cherry Birch to make it ownable and memorable.

We established the Cherry Birch tree as a visual mnemonic, but the owner preferred less colour and one reusable illustration for the full product line. We explored a range of custom illustration styles, from highly graphic to highly naturalistic.

The final packaging system is illustration forward employing restrained typography. The packaging system consists of a single approach for the base label and modular scent labels to create a highly consistent identity across the full Cherry Birch product range. The scent names were developed to be lightly playful, conversational, and emotionally specific. This approach gives the product line a recognizable retail presence while keeping production costs low yet scalable, and adaptable for future product additions.