PGGB: Initial ideas

As the post title suggests, these are my initial ideas and design sheets for the second drink in my range for the Fictional Drinks brief, the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy fame. For anyone not in the know, the drink is the 'best cocktail in the universe' and has an effect on the drinker not unlike 'having your brains smashed out with a slice of lemon wrapped 'round a large gold brick.'

So in truth, my initial perception of the drink was something that was quite dangerous and hazardous so I instantly clicked onto the idea of hazard warning signs, toxic colours and a somewhat 'drink at your peril' aesthetic.


Just a quick investigation into bottle shapes and hazard warning stripes. I quite like the idea of having a tall, thin, rather standoffish looking bottle. I'm also considering the shape of conical flasks and other scientific glass containers to give the whole thing a kind of experimental nature.



Just a quick look into the connotations of both yellow and green, two rather toxic looking colours, in truth. While both have good connotations, yellow is happy, green is healthy etc, I chose to focus on the bad connotations of each colour. Yellow is nature's 'warning' colour, as it's highly visible and it's also the colour used for most hazard warning signs. While green can be healthy, some shades of green look quite sickly at the same time and green is the colour most often associated with the idea of toxic waste.
This was my rather unsuccessful attempt at using pictograms to depict somebody having their 'brain smashed out', although none of them seem to work and I can quite easily say that from this one attempt, it's not a direction that I want to go down.
Playing around with neon colours and the idea of hazard warning tape. The bottle shape that I'm experimenting with at this stage is a tall, thin bottle. I think that the red looks a little bit too much like a fire extinguisher so red, I will not be going with. The blue is quite a neon looking colour but it doesn't really scream 'hazard! stay away!' at me, which is what I want it to do. The green is a very toxic looking colour and is the stereotypical colour of toxic waste.
Not really related to the project but if you flip that last sheet over, it looks a little bit like a Quentin Blake illustration! Unfortunately not related to this brief.
 Having a go at some of the hazard warning signs that I'm pretty sure are universal. I should look into that. Anyway, the bottom row is me having another quick go at conveying the 'smashed out brain' pictogram in an actual triangular icon. Didn't work, not too fussed about trying it again.
 Ahhh, focusing on the yellow colour for a moment, playing with getting all of the type onto the bottle because afterall, Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster is a really long product name and a bit of a mouthful. I'm probably just going to refer to it as PGGB from this point on. Anyway, I quite like the ideas of using really thick, visible black stripes instead of thin little ones. It makes it look that much more 'stay away'.
 A quick look into the idea of using green liquid and using the yellow for the label with the black hazard stripes instead. On the whole, I think I prefer where I'm going with the yellow liquid over the green as there is a possibility that I won't have to print yellow at all, just black to go over the yellow liquid and that will keep printing costs low. If it was going to be manufactured anyway.
 On a final note, I like the idea of the pointed bottle at the bottom right corner of this design sheet. Completely impractical and impossible to produce, but very futuristic and dangerous looking.