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The ”magic” world of fermentation has been illustrated by Sydney studio Percept on Bear Brewing’s latest sauce range, The Ferm, maximising the use of only a clear bottle and screen printing on pack.

Bear Brewing produces fermented sauces in a variety of flavours for the Australian market and approached the Percept team to help shift from its original brand positioning, to one that developed the name and branding as “creative and clever”.

Each product in The Ferm range has a bespoke illustration on the process and use of ingredients in a fun and characterful manner.

Percept designer Kåre Martens said the team was constrained by the existing packaging (the clear bottle) and the printing technique (screen printing), which lent the concept of the design to be better suited with an illustrative approach.

“But the way we look at it, having a constraint like that is also an opportunity to communicate clearer and be more single minded. The end result is visually stronger because of it,” said Martens.

“The bottles are clear and the colour you see, is actually the real colour of the sauces.

“These are fermented sauces, absolutely no additives and sugars are used, so this is the true colours of the vegetables used. We were surprised how vibrant they were.”

Martens said the idea behind the brand name and the topic of the illustrations represents, “in almost an elaborated way, the most magical process behind fermenting sauces like this”.

“There are many steps in the process and lots of stages that are more like experimentation that normal cooking,” said Martens.

Percept’s work on The Ferm landed the studio a finalist spot in the packaging category for the 2019 AGDA Awards.

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