Overview

Lumen Grove was a packaging and product branding project centred around botanical soap.

I developed two products — Strawberry + Rosewater and Chamomile + Almond — and expanded the identity beyond the individual soap bars into packaging, a retail display and social media content.

Problem

Unlike food packaging, where flavour can be communicated quite directly, soap packaging has to suggest things that customers cannot properly experience until they use it, such as scent, softness, ingredients and mood.

The two soaps also needed to feel noticeably different without looking like unrelated brands.

Solution

I created a shared packaging structure using an oval label system, geometric border details and a cream base.

The Strawberry + Rosewater product uses stronger pinks and reds with strawberry and floral details, giving it a sweeter and brighter feel.

Chamomile + Almond shifts towards warm orange, beige and botanical imagery, making it feel softer and calmer.

Dark natural green was then used across the wider Lumen Grove range to connect both variants back to the botanical theme.

I also developed the look of the soap bars themselves, the boxed packaging, a retail display containing both variants and social media content showing the products being used alongside ingredients and plants.

Reflection

This project went further than my earlier packaging work because I was not only designing the outside of the product.

I had to think about how the soap itself looked, how the range would sit together in a retail display and how the same visual style could still work on Instagram.

It made me more interested in product branding as something that works across the product, packaging, display and social media rather than just one piece on its own.

If I developed Lumen Grove further, I would create additional scents, refine the physical materials and explore sustainable stocks, embossing or other tactile finishes so the packaging itself supported the natural and sensory side of the brand.