“Cactus Flower” by Alison Koo (IDEA Grad 2024) is a top packaging and menu design project in IDEA School of Design’s IDES 362 Visual Communication Studio I: Branding Concentration with Dominique Walker.

Check out this top student packaging and menu design project from our branding concentration!

Menu Design Project by Alison Koo (IDEA Grad 2024)

As far as southern cuisine goes, options are limited. You’ve got your classic grilled ribs, casseroles, and chicken and waffles but the way we serve it, you’ll be eating flowers and waffles. At Cactus Flower, we bring the flower (as in plant-based) to the cactus (as in country). We take southern classics and bring our contemporary spin to share with all cowboys, country girls, and every country-radio-station-loving person in between. Expect the honky tonk. Expect the yeehaw. And most importantly, expect a ride on a beautiful stallion for an escape to the country.

Country music is at the heart of Southern culture and Cactus Flower cranks up the tunes and nostalgia for the hungry bellies of city dwellers’. Depending on how you're feeling… or what you’re craving, its menu is divided into two sides to reflect the emotions of popular country music. Salty or sweet. In addition, Cactus Flower focuses on shared plates as a nod to the traditions of community found in southern cuisine. Since Cactus Flower’s food is mainly served shared, minimizing clutter was integral for its functionality as a menu. The single slim and tall accordion-style brochure makes it easy for customers to focus on the goal, the food, without the distraction of excess pages. As for visual design, the menu is inspired by the rustic and flowing patterns of cowboy boots. The handwritten type, lowercase set text, embellished border, and dusty color palette combine to create an overall contemporary and feminine feel.

Cactus Flower encompasses the three defining pillars of the country, music, and good food. These three pillars all have one thing in common: their roots. It was a no-brainer to expand these Southern “roots” through sauces. Southern comfort food is home to many bold flavours which are influenced by different regions. And each sauce is suitable for various levels of use, from a light-drizzle-on-top to a dunk-the-whole-thing-in-kind-of-sauce. The whole concept of these sauces is to bring city living people the taste and memory of country flavour. In terms of visual design, all packaging labels were abstractly inspired by guitars to keep the foundation of music alive within the branding. But besides its symbolism of music, the guitars also represent the aspect of “roots” within country music as a whole. Another key visual element was implementing the iconic landmarks and recognizable features of these southern regions. You’ll see in the design that the guitar strings connect out into the skyline of each city which is paired with a layering landscape unique to its region.

Packaging Design Project by Alison Koo (IDEA Grad 2024)

About the Course

Thematically structured around the concept of “design for good”, this course introduces a variety of creative briefs, research methods, leadership skills, and tools that model best practices. Students work in groups to deconstruct the briefs, build on the research, identify tasks, map workflow, explore and define problem-solving strategies, and build solutions and case studies. Students concentrate on branding for project deliverables.