Savor Spice Mix Branding

A packaging concept for regionally inspired African American spice blends made to get young people with minimal cooking skills eating and learning the history of African American foods. I conceptualized, designed and rendered the packaging and logo for this project.

Subject Matters

When the question is asked, how can we introduce traditional African American history, flavors, and recipes to young adults with minimal cooking skills? We quickly realized the project really concerns food stigmas, systemic inequities, slavery, cultural appropriation, environmentalism and capitalism.

Americans’ relationship to food is unique and circumstantial. Familial traditions may trace to historical cultural metamorphoses. Systemic social and economic factors restrict the time and money people can afford to allocate to food, and the quality of food they have access to. Thus, food becomes a way of contextualizing society and history.

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Research and learning was not a project milestone, it was the framework for the entire project. This research informed every choice; sustainable packaging, percentages of profits donated, the choice of spices blends, and the presentation of the product.

A timeline of the genesis of regional African American dishes through centuries of movement, metamorphosis, and exposure to other cultures (such as the indigenous people of the south) informed the blends we chose to best represent the diaspora of dishes. Our multiple surveys with African American students challenged our assumptions both about barriers for inexperienced cooks and young Black people’s relationships with food. Interviews with Kent State University professor of Pan African Studies, Denise Harrison, kept us accountable and first compelled us to consider the intricacies of this project. Meal delivery services are time efficient and positively develop people’s relationships to cooking, however, they are not economical nor environmentally sustainable. Many of these dishes were first replications of African Recipes made with the lesser quality, unhealthy ingredients allowed to slaves. Denise asked, how could we represent history while still encouraging affordable healthy food?

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Team Credits

Cathy Le: Researcher
Joseph Dietrich: Researcher
Mitch Irwin: Prototype Designer
Samantha Zimmerman: Researcher
Samuel Byers: Researcher
Sebastian Menard: Researcher
Thomas Wilson: Prototype Designer
Tyson McGavin: Prototype Designer
VIncent Robson: graphic designer

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