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Like most identity designers these days,

Tracy Sabin finds that almost every client

w

ho calls him wants “a brand,” whether it

makes sense or not. Awareness of branding

has grown so much, he says, that the knee-

jerk response is to hurry up and get one.

“Branding is so pervasive now that it’s really

difficult to make your client’s brand stand

out,” the principal of Sabingrafi

k notes.

Sabin’s approach to success is to come up with an identity that

surprises the viewer. One way to do this

is to combine elements

that are slightly incongruous. Think of Apple Computer, he says.

What does a piece of fruit have to do with computers? “But it is a

compelling image, and that element of surprise works,” Sabin says.

The designer used this approach to recreate the identity for

Sensa, a decade-old, herbally enhanced drink that is lacking only

in investors to bring it to market in its new guise. The product’s

developer, Karim Amiryani, owner of Tamansari Beverage, whose

strength is in blend

ing delicious and attractive natural fruit dri nks,

has struggled to find the right market for his product. His initial

approach had been to market the drink to health-minded women,

but he now feels there is a much larger market among young

adults of both sexes. He asked Sabin to create a package for this

new demographic.

That the bottle would be clear was a given, since Amiryani had

gone to great lengths to develop a delicious, brightly colored

drink using only natural ingredients and wanted to show off the

product. The seemingly incongruous rhinoceros graphi

c for the

bottle derived from surfers’ use of the word rhino to describe a

large wave, and Sabin’s design shows a wave curling back over

the animal.

To that nod to youth culture Sabin added to the glass of the bot-

tle two molded rings that simulate barbed wire, which is a popu-

lar tattoo image. The letterforms used for the name S

ensa

a

re

influenced by graffiti and have the same spiky tone as the wire,

the wave, and the rhino’s horns.

“ The elements themselves don’t seem to match,” says Sabin,

“but hopefully it all comes together when the bottle sits on the

shelf, vying for attention amongst all of the competitors’ bottles.”

Tamansari Beverage

Package Design and Identity

Sabingrafik, Carlsbad, CA

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