CHARLIE’S QUENCHER

Brother Design specializes in private label, brand, and packaging design and is based in Auckland, New Zealand. Brother won the 2014 Vertex Awards Best of Show and four gold medals for Pams Private Label, where they outshone designs for global retail giants such as Tesco, Safeway, and Woolworths.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION: Charlie’s was launched in 1999 by three New Zealanders. They started out by juicing oranges by hand and sampling the juice in supermarkets. It’s since become an iconic New Zealand brand with six different product ranges, sold in both New Zealand and Australia.

Brother was asked to design a fresh new label that redefined and rejuvenated the existing Charlie’s Quencher range, as well as to help rebuild the Charlie’s brand personality and improve shelf impact. Charlie’s had always done things a bit differently than their competitors, with their brand proposition being “honest goodness.”

Brother’s main objective was to communicate that the juice is “un-messed with” (i.e., less manufactured, more pure, more real) while maintaining a bit of the “larrikin” (young hoodlum), which is a core part of the Charlie’s DNA.

Hand-drawn type is part of the design zeitgeist in the United States. Can you talk about its popularity in New Zealand?

paula bunny: Hand-drawn type is very popular in New Zealand, and has been for what seems like forever. We have a pretty laid-back kind of lifestyle, so we tend to not get too fussy or too formal; we like things to be a bit simpler, and not too complicated. We relate to the freeness and honesty of hand-drawn type. It’s unpretentious—just like we like to think we are!

Handcrafted type is a great way to humanize a brand and give it a handmade sensibility. It moves the product away from feeling manufactured or processed or too slick and overdone. It’s a graphic resource we’ve used for many years on the private label brand Pams, which we design.

Who is the typical consumer, and why would the style of writing you chose appeal to them?

The typical Charlie’s consumer wants an uncomplicated, healthy, honest juice experience...with some attitude. They look for a brand that cuts through the clutter of the refrigerator case and gives them the facts straight up, but in a cheeky, good-hearted, spirited way—therefore a loose, relaxed handwritten style and tone was appropriate. It helped to reinforce our good-natured, uncomplicated personality—where we New Zealanders like to tell it like it is and not take ourselves too seriously.

Your sketches include a guy on a motorcycle. How did the packaging evolve to not include this figure on the front of the juice bottle?

The guy on the motorcycle was on the very first Charlie’s label that came out in 1999, when the company was just three guys who were juicing oranges inside supermarkets. I remembered this little guy, as I had just arrived back from eight years living in New York and the label stood out to me as being so fresh and relaxed and casual—unlike anything I’d seen in the United States prior to that time. I thought it would be great to bring this fella back, as he symbolized the casual roots of this iconic New Zealand brand, and I did look at including him on some of my earlier sketches, but it was decided that we would focus instead on communicating the old-fashioned lemonade style of the product on the front label. Motorcycle guy is on the back label, though, as a fun little reminder of where Charlie’s had come from—three guys racing ’round to supermarkets in Auckland, New Zealand, on a scooter with their fresh squeezed orange juice.

What was your inspiration for the hand-drawn typography? Historical references?

They’ve always fronted the Charlie’s ad campaigns with Mark Ellis (a New Zealand personality/ex–All Blacks rugby player), who is one of the original owners. They have always used his distinctive language in these ads and on packaging as well.

The language and the look are kind of New Zealand back in 1985 (Redline bikes, high-top sneakers, Walkman cassette decks, etc.)—very lo-fi.

I started researching illustration styles and hired Chris Piascik, an illustrator based in the United States whose style felt so right: unfussy, not too slick, and a little crazy/quirky. Charlie’s has always been lo-fi—a bit raw and rough around the edges, unpretentious—and this has always been a really good way to communicate the “un-messed with,” natural, unprocessed ethos of Charlie’s.

Who came up with the “Yep” line?

I wanted to create a kind of a lighthearted, friendly conversation to explain the style of the product, which is an old-fashioned lemonade style, and I wanted that tone to be similar to Mark Ellis’s distinctive kiwi blokey voice. So that’s how “yep” came about—it’s exactly how Mark would have said it; he would have said “Yep...it’s an old-fashioned Charlie’s lemonade Quencher.” It’s a warm, friendly way of inviting the consumer in. It’s how we kiwis talk.

product: Charlie’s Quencher
client: Better Drinks Co.
design firm: Brother Design
art director/designer: Paula Bunny
hand letterer/illustrator: Chris Piascik
medium: Pencil and digital
country: New Zealand

The cheeky and good-hearted personality of this type expresses the casual roots of this New Zealand juice brand.

Brother Design’s various directions position Charlie’s as classic and old fashioned, playing off the product’s DIY roots.