For this packaging set, I played off of the idea that people who buy really spicy hot sauces have a desire for the pain they induce by using images of the landscape and dangerous animals of the American Southwest deserts. While this kind of imagery is common with novelty hot sauce labels, I elevated the aesthetic to give it a more sophisticated look using old Wanted posters and ammo boxes as inspiration.
By extracting parts of the cliche old western typeface, Rosewood, I develped a logo that felt sharp and dangerous and represented the heat that Wanted aims to achieve. The tagline and names for each hot sauce or spice reference Johnny Cash’s song, ‘Mean as Hell’ while an excerpt of the song is included on the inside of the lid to give context. The heat scale is represented by the gradient visible on both the outside and the recessed beds of the box, as well as the animals on each label.
