Crow & Crystal

Project Scope

Many people within recent years have become increasingly interested in witchcraft and paganism. With this relatively quick rise, many people do not have brick and mortar stores to shop at, so they turn to online resources. For this project, I knew that I wanted to create a witchcraft subscription box of some sort, and after research of the current market, I realized that there weren’t many boxes or kits that were spell-specific, and a lot were very general with their contents. To solve this problem, I created Crow & Crystal, a subscription box for beginner witchcraft offered seasonally.

Demographic

Young women aged 16-25 are the target demographic for Crow & Crystal. In an article written by Deena Yellin for USA Today, “The numbers of Americans who identify with Wicca or paganism has risen from 134,000 in 2001 to nearly 2 million today, according to Helen Berger, a resident scholar at Brandeis University's Women's Studies Research Center, who has conducted extensive research and authored four books about witches and pagans. The witch community in America has been growing steadily since the 1960s, she said, and "much of the recent growth is coming from young women."”

Yellin, Deena. “'We're in the Middle of a Witch Moment': Hip Witchcraft Is on the Rise in the US.” USA Today, Gannett Satellite Information Network, 1 Nov. 2021, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/10/28/celtic-festival-samhain-2021-celebration-wicca-witches/6182226001/.

Deliverables

Primary Logo
Secondary Logo
1 subscription box
1 spell booklet
6 herb packet labels
1 essential oil bottle label
1 incense label
4 crystal identification cards
1 poster
1 sticker sheet
Website (wix)
Photography

Objectives

To independently research, design, and produce a subscription box with a logo, website, labels for herbs and incense, crystal identification cards, a poster, sticker sheet, and a booklet with a spell.
To create a cohesive, identifiable brand for crow & crystal using both print and web mediums.
To create a website with homepage, shop, about section, contact page, subscription page, and account section.
Research my target demographic and create a design to appeal to the demographic.
Receive peer and faculty critique, and make appropriate changes based upon critique.
Present the final product and process in a professional manner to the department.

The Process

Research

Growing up with a parent who loosely practices Wicca, some of the ideals and morals were engrained into my upbringing, making this a project I have a good amount of previous knowledge on. While no religion or spirituality was forced upon me, paganism just sort of made sense as I got older. Wicca and paganism, or earthly spirituality at its most basic explanation, is something that has many different interpretations and understandings. Terminology is something that should first be understood before anything else.

According to thealmostwitch.com, “Wicca is a specific religion with traditions, rules, and deities. Paganism is a term used to describe someone who follows an earth-based, spiritual path. And witchcraft can be someone’s whole religion, part of their spiritual path, or a secular tool of expression. I use this phrase to keep it all straight: All wiccans are pagans, but not all pagans are wiccans.”

Many still associate paganism and witchcraft with “devil worship” and just overall evil vibes, which is not at all what most pagans are like. Part of my goal of creating this project was to appeal to the new demographic of witches, who mostly fall under the 16-25 age range. Trying to find concrete data is difficult since many are still fearful of being a known witch, so some that identify as witches will not tell others out of fear of stigmatization. But with 2 million plus views on TikTok, videos under the hashtag #WitchTok are making witchcraft and paganism a hot topic amongst Gen Z.

Spafford, Sadie. “The Difference between Paganism, Wicca, and Witchcraft.” The Almost Witch, The Almost Witch, 23 Oct. 2020, https://www.thealmostwitch.com/blog/the-difference-between-paganism-wicca-and-witchcraft#:~:text=Wicca%20is%20a%20subset%20of%20Paganism%20that%20was,initiated%20into%20covens%20and%20learn%20specific%2C%20ceremonial%20magic.

Moodboard

My inspiration for the direction of this project came from deeper earth tones and bold typefaces. The illustrations have a monoline, hand done style to it, and patterning is achieved by arranging the illustrations around typography along with the use of kraft paper and a little twine in the box.

Logo Process

Before I created the logo or even decided on a name, I created my pattern (you’ll see that process in a minute!). The pattern was a monoline style with a hand-dawn texture as opposed to smoothly vectorized.

I knew for my logo that I wanted it to be a combination of a nice modern serif typeface and a crow. I started with a mystical and pointy looking typeface and a crow silhouette, then transitioned to an outline of the crow with a bolder typeface and the ‘Y’ extending into a branch for the crow to be perched on.

Color

My choice of colors were inspired by darker earth tones. I used Gypsum Rose, Deep Ruby, Jade, and Sodalite. All names were inspired by crystals of similar shades.

Typography

For creating the Crow & Crystal brand, I decided to use Ranille and Mort Modern. Ranille is a rounder typeface with a bold stroke and a chunky serif. I chose Ranille for my Logotype because I really liked the ampersand, and it was bold with a nice serif. I wanted something that had nice readability while stylized in lowercase, so I went with a typeface with a high-x height that could hold some stability. Mort Modern is a type family with many weights and styles, making it great for body copy and headers.

Pattern

Something I wanted to push myself to do for this project was illustration. It’s not something that I typically am comfortable with doing at all, but I was up for the challenge. In my research I had found repeating patterns and thought that would work well for the inside of the box, and the cover of the booklet.

Packaging

Subscription Box

Since this is a subscription box for beginner witchcraft, I wanted to keep the box itself relatively concealed as to what was inside because of the still-present stigmatization. Since the box needs to be mostly unidentifiable from the outside, this gave me the idea for an opening unboxing message with the pattern surrounding it and my Gypsum Rose and Jade colors used for the outside of the box. I chose “what’s up, witch?” as a play on words (you can guess why), with the goal of humor for the customers as they open the box for the first time.

Spell Booklet

For my spell booklet, I wanted it to fit on one tabloid sized sheet and have it fold into the booklet. This did set some limitations with how large the booklet could be, but with just one spell I found it to be the perfect handheld size.

Labels

To keep cohesion with my labels, I wanted a circular label for the herbs with the name of the item in and magickal properties of the herbs. For the essential oil bottle, I added needed a caution warning, and contact information for the company.

Crystal Identification Cards

The crystal cards were inspired by apothecary labels. With gridding and different hierarchies of type, this adds a bit more sophistication to the already established brand. There is also slight inspiration from tarot cards.

Poster

Since I’m fairly new with illustration, I wanted my poster to be in the same (mostly) monoline illustration style, and to add depth I put a shadow behind all of the elements which makes the Luna Moth appear to be floating or pinned to the page.