lbella | Müv Cola

Müv Cola

Design and marketing for a bubbly new soda company that's all about summer vibes and a good time.

In the summer of 2021, I launched a collection in my store called Müv Cola. It was a several months long project based on the creation of a fictional soda company. I did the branding design, logo design, motion graphic design and did the character design for all the mascots. I also designed all the products that were up for sale, the prints, the stickers, and the keychain charms.

Jump to:

Backstory

The idea for this project goes back much further than summer 2021. Originally, I came up with this idea back in June 2019, and had the idea of making a cast of characters that were mascots for a soda brand where they were superheroes on skates.

Original sketches from 2019.

I eventually ended up shelving it because at the time I was doing research and getting prepared for my capstone project that would really get started in the Fall and I figured this could be a fun project to tackle later in the future. So I made a note of my idea, saved the sketch and saved it for later.

Back to top

Fast-forward to 2021

Jump ahead to very early 2021. I'm completely burnt out from my capstone and graduating and dealing with the early era of the pandemic. I want to do something completely fresh and new. I'm reminded about that soda project I came up with a couple years ago and I get so excited about it that I start to research like crazy.

I start a Pinterest board for the project and over time I start gradually collecting things relating to the overall mood for the project. I wanted this project to convey a laid back, fun, summery vibe. Eventually I start looking at typography inspiration, branding inspiration for existing soft drinks, rollerskating, even potential product ideas for my store.

Snippets of my Müv Cola Pinterest boards.

Back to top

Name & Logo

Coming up with the name and logo was an interesting challenge because for the first time ever, I immediately came up with a name for a company before I even thought of what the logo would look like.

I wanted to make some sort of association between the name "Müv Cola" and the kind of "always moving, go, go go" vibe that you could get with summer activities. And since all the mascots would almost always be on skates, I liked having a name with an umlaut as a kind of cute representation of the wheels on rollerskates.

Ultimately for the logo I wanted a very friendly and round looking logo, perhaps something that looked like drops of liquid (like soda!) or something that had a lot of energy or motion to it. In a lot of these sketches you'll see I really liked having the motion of a round, tilted, logo.

Eventually I settled for a logo design that I ended up hand lettering myself that encompassed the round, friendly, drippy aesthetic I was really going for.

At this point I hadn't solidified brand colors or anything, but I felt once I had the logo sorted, I could go on to design the mascots and the brand colors would soon follow.

Final Logo

Once the final was made, I could pair it up with names of different flavors and make motion graphics for the logo.

Back to top

Mascots

I'm in love with character design and designing mascots for projects like this is one of my favorite things. So once I got to this part I had a spectacular time coming up with them.

At this point I had come up with 5 flavors for this fictional soda company: Orange Cream, Sour Green Apple, Spicy Cherry, Glorious Grape, and Mango Madness.

Early on in the process, I wanted to make these mascots human. Somewhere along the way I really thought about it and decided "why limit these mascots to being typical regular humans?" and decided to make it more interesting by making them humanoid fruits instead.

The girls as their "fruitsonas."

Once I settled on their final designs, I went ahead and made reference sheets for each character, complete with each of their likes/dislikes, special items, and little backstories.

Back to top

Products

Once I had the logo, the mascots, and the colors I was going to use, I went full speed ahead into designing the products that I was going to sell in Virtual-K. I wanted stickers for each mascot and 2 different keychain charms for each mascot.

So basically: 5 stickers, and 10 keychain charms for a total of 15 items to add to the store that summer. Since the designs were largely the same within each group of items, I had to come up with an organized system to make the designs almost like a template so that way I can just make 1 design and tailor it for each mascot. It took a lot longer than I anticipated but it was absolutely worth it once I figured it out.

Müv Cola - "Skate Soda" stickers

Summer is in full swing and Müv Cola is skating their way into your hearts! Enjoy some fresh Skate Soda with the girls by buying any of these cute 3" x 3" translucent vinyl stickers!

— Excerpt from the product description on Virtual-K

The really fun part about this set of stickers is that they're translucent stickers; a halfway point between completely clear and opaque.

Müv Cola - Cola Pops charms

Summer is in full swing and Müv Cola is skating their way into your hearts! Enjoy some delicious Cola Pops by buying any of these cute 3" acrylic charms!

— Excerpt from the product description on Virtual-K

These charms came out absolutely beautifully and I adore them! They also have a slight 3D effect on them so that way the popsicle looks like it's sticking out just a little bit off of the popsicle stick.

Müv Cola - "Shook Up Soda" shaker charms

Nothing better than some delicious Müv Cola to cap off a lovely summer afternoon— ah...well, unless someone shook it first. Enjoy some shook up soda by buying this fun 3" acrylic shaker charm.

Yes, you can shake up all the contents inside and live the fantasy you've always wanted: shaking soda cans without real messes or consequences!

— Excerpt from the product description on Virtual-K

A demonstration of the shaker charm in action that I made to share and advertise on social media.

This charm was the most expensive to make due to all the separate moving parts and the multiple layers of the charm itself. But it was the most fun to actually get printed and made. I can't tell you how often I catch myself shaking up this charm just while brainstorming or idling at my desk. It's delightful!

Since it is also the most experimental product, I have these on permanent pre-order in the store and currently, Orange Cream is the only flavor I have in person.

Back to top

Marketing

The marketing for this project was very highly social media based, with most of my promotion happening on twitter. It ranges from still images, to motion graphics, to recorded video to show the different products available and to introduce people to the project and the characters.

Since my store is small, new, and I can't really make a true guess on how well certain items will sell; nearly everything in my store is on a made-to-order basis. I put a lot of emphasis on pre-ordering, especially on newly added items.

Still Image Promotions

Alongside all the product photos, I also had made small advertisements to promote pre-orders and the store as a whole that I posted on social media.

These images were made to advertise the Cola Pop charms and Skate Soda stickers that were available for the first round of pre-orders at the time. Since I didn't have the physical items yet, I made mockups for each product and included them here to give people a sense of what the final product would most likely look like.

This was the banner I had up in the store (and had also posted on social media) that highlighted the launch of the Müv Cola collection. The illustration featured here was also available as a small print to celebrate.

Motion Graphics Promotions

Since everything I had made for the past few months at this point involved completely new characters within a new concept, I had to find a way to introduce my already existing followers to this project. So I went ahead and made little motion graphics that introduces each mascot. These were originally posted on twitter.

I wanted these to be short, just under 30 second videos with not too much text since I knew these were getting posted on social media and viewers wouldn't have the patience for anything longer. So I focused on making things eye catching and brief.

Back to top

Graphic Design

There's lots of things I love about graphic design, but I have a heavy lean towards brand identity, logo design, and motion graphics.

Virtual-K

My little art shop (or "art diner") where I sell my work in the form of stickers, prints, posters, keychain charms, and more!

LBella Branding 2020

Bold, colorful, and fun brand identity design I've done for myself!

"Paprika" Poster Redesign

A movie poster redesign for the 2006 animated film, Paprika.

Virtual-K Sticker Club

A monthly "sticker of the month" club that people can subscribe to and get fun stickers in the mail each month. Works as an extension of my art diner, Virtual-K.