Practical - Initial sleeve designs

For my range of meals, I wanted to include one meat meal, one fish meal and one veggie meal in order to have a varied range. As examples I have 

Below are the initial digital designs including stock photography. The distinguishing feature between the different sleeves is the use of colour. Differentiating between the meals, (red/pink for meat, blue for fish and green for a vegetarian meal) the colours instantly signify the type of meal, making it easy for people who may be in a rush to choose the meal for them.

The different sections of the sleeve are laid out and deconstructed here. The coloured section will be on the lid of the box, and the section with the photo and meal name will be on the front of the box, facing out when placed on a shelf. The opposite section is for the back of the box, which features a small description of how the almost ready meals work - this informs the customer that they have to cook the meal themselves. The underside of the box features the ingredients/method/recipe in order to prepare and cook the meal. This saves paper as unlike Hello Fresh, I will not have to include an extra recipe card with cooking instructions. The blank boxes are placeholders for the logo design.

These initial designs are very simplistic and modern, relying on the use of colour. The colours themselves are bold and remind me of primary colours - I want to try to use colour in a more pared back way, using it to differentiate between meals still, but not as the primary focus. 

Within these layout experiments, I have developed the sleeve to include the ingredients in the box as a primary feature. This way consumers can easily see what is provided and what is not - lists of both will be provided for easy viewing.

Since the front of the box will likely be the first place people will see on the box they may need to know the meal (however this may be avoidable since the name of the meal will be placed so close on the sleeve). I have also added the small print which states that oil salt pepper and cooking equipment is not included. However, this makes the front of the sleeve very busy with a lot of text.

How I will develop:

Experiment with layout. Since there will be a lot of text within the sleeve, I will need to find a way to layout this text without overcrowding the sleeve. Information and instructions to follow need to be legible and easy to follow.

Experiment with colour. The colours I am using at the moment are very bright and modern, I want to see if different tones of these colours would be better in portraying the USP of the meal range.

Experiment with type. The typeface I am using at the moment is similar to the colours in that it is very bold and modern. I want to explore the idea of hand lettering to echo the fact that the meal will also be handmade. In previous research, I found examples to encompass the use of colour and hand-drawn type such as these meals from Coco and Lucas. 

Whilst these are children's meals, the style of them echoes handmade cooking with brush writing and pale colours alongside painted shapes. Food photography for these meals is featured on the front of the sleeve as there is no space on the wrap-around sleeve to include on the sides of the box.