Every project I take on begins with the same idea: understand the real world it enters. Before choosing a typeface or a colour, I want to know where the work will stand, who will touch it and what it will sit next to.
Go where the product will live
If it is packaging, go to the shelf. Look at the competitors on either side, the lighting in the store, the height at which customers actually look. If it is a café brand, sit in the street outside and watch how people walk past.
Ten minutes in the real place often tells you more than a week of mood boards.
Notice what is already there
Context is not a constraint to fight; it is material to work with. Local materials, the way a city signs its shops, the colours that appear again and again in a neighbourhood — these are clues to what will feel natural and what will feel foreign.
My background in architecture taught me to read spaces this way: a building is always a response to its site. Brands and packages are no different.
Design for the second look
The first look is about attention. The second look is about trust. Once someone has noticed a package, they read it, turn it over and decide whether it is for them.
A design built around its context earns that second look, because it speaks the language the customer already uses.
Questions to bring to every brief
- Where exactly will this be seen, held or used?
- What surrounds it, and what will it be compared to?
- What does the local culture already associate with this category?
- What would feel respectful here — and what would feel borrowed?
Start there, and the design has something real to stand on.