Concept
One of my favorite writers and philosophers, David Foster Wallace, wrote the commencement speech “This Is Water,” which reflects on the tendency of college students to “over-intellectualize stuff” and “get lost in abstract arguments inside [their heads] instead of simply paying attention to what’s going on right in front of [them].”
I found that this was a thought that could also relate to breakfast, and how people overcomplicate something that is in reality so simple. Shouldn’t people start their day with good food and a positive outlook instead of getting so caught up in the specifics?
With Philosophical Breakfast, I wanted to create a brand that encourages consumers to start their day not only with more satisfying nutrition, but also a fresh perspective on their seemingly complex lives. Plus, with It’s Just Cereal specifically, I wanted to appeal to its diverse, primarily millennial audience and engage them with different personalities and messages with each flavor.
Comps
Dielines
Original Flavor
Banana Nut
An example of how the system translates to alternate flavors.
Inside
On the side panel, consumers are encouraged to create their own cereal characters with a template provided inside of the box. Here is what they will find when the box is opened and flattened.
Ecommerce Positioning
Visual System
These elements are consistent across all variations of It's Just Cereal:
Parent Brand
In designing the logo for Philosophical Breakfast, it was important that the brand had its own personality, but also that it didn’t upstage the more important hierarchial elements. The final design resembles the sun peaking out at dawn, both with the round shape and its position on top of the secondary brand name, and was inspired by retro, diner-like typography and signage.
Cereal Art
One of the most prominent features of It’s Just Cereal is the “cereal art” on the primary display panel, and the brand’s encouragement of consumers to create their own cereal characters with the prospect of having one of them featured on future boxes.
To create the cereal characters, I experimented with different types and textures of cereal from different brands and created images from flakes, crumbs, and slices of different dried fruit. For the final photographs, I printed out my drawings of each character and carefully placed the flakes and fruit over the outlines.
Sketches
(c) Marisa Hagerty. All rights reserved.
Special thanks to my professors Marianne Klimchuk and Sandra Krasovec for their guidance on this project.
