Everyone who has taken an art class has had to draw or paint the infamous bowl of fruit. This exercise is to strengthen your understanding of shapes, depth perception, light and shadow. It is a great exercise for anyone to do to understand the basics.

Food and beverage packaging is a wonderful place to get inspiration, however the food and drink itself can be a source of inspiration as well. Take the Cuppa Kids I have designed.  Pictured on the left is my Chai Spice Cuppa Kid.

The Cuppa Kids were inspired by 4 tea types: Green Tea, Black Tea, Rooibos Tea, and White Tea. They were also inspired by teas I personally enjoy drinking: Chai, Earl Grey, Matcha, and Silver Needle.

You can find this common theme in most of the “kawaii” art designs; cute cupcakes, smiling fruit, let your imagination run wild.  You can use personification or just simply the concept or color scheme.

A hamburger can inspire a color scheme for fast food: tan and crème for the bun; dark brown for the burger; red for ketchup; yellow for mustard; dark brown and beige for bacon; white for onion; green for lettuce… the possibilities are endless.

A great example of using inspiration and color schemes from food is chefBurger’s Business Identity by Tad Carpenter. I love how the little burgers have such huge personalities. The use of standard colors as I mentioned above for the burger men mixed with pale blues and plaid are amazing. The style of these burger men are heavily influenced by the Japanese “kawaii” style I was talking about earlier (I’ll write a post detailing this more at a later date).

Check out Tad Carpenter’s chefBURGER pics on flickr
Check out Tad Carpenter’s site for more inspiration
The official chefBURGER website is also a must see!

Till next time, keep Reaching for New Designs!