Welcome to
wild chips
This is Wild Chips, an academic branding project completed during my junior year as a Communication Design major. The assignment allowed complete freedom in industry and direction. I chose to build a food and beverage brand to explore packaging, storytelling, and consumer-focused brand systems.
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The kickoff of a new project Let's go back to the start
Guidelines and Strategy
The brief was intentionally open-ended, requiring a brand to be built entirely from scratch, including identity, guidelines, positioning, and product applications. I chose the food and beverage space to explore consumer-facing branding through packaging and storytelling, and because it is a market I am personally drawn to.
As part of the assignment, we were required to use an animal as the brand’s symbol, which led me to choose a moose to represent quiet strength and stability.
At the same time, I was paying attention to the broader political climate and the chip market itself, which was heavily dominated by U.S.-based brands. Canada has a strong agricultural foundation, particularly in potato farming, and the moose carries clear cultural significance there. Positioning the brand as Canadian allowed those elements to work together and gave Wild Chips a more intentional point of origin and brand strategy.
A logo and place of origin were not enough to define what Wild Chips stood for, so the next step was clarifying its mission. I anchored the brand around environmental conservation and responsible agriculture, with an emphasis on sustainable farming and partnerships with local Canadian producers. At the time, interest in buying local was increasing, which made this positioning feel timely and relevant rather than theoretical.
With that foundation in place, I began sketching. These early drawings were less about polish and more about translating the brand’s values into a visual direction, which led directly into the first logo concepts.
The foundation was set But Wild Chips needed a look
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logo & Visual brand
As I began sketching, one visual motif kept resurfacing: the sun. From a strategic standpoint, research showed that many chip brands use the sun to signal warmth, health, and natural ingredients, which aligned with Wild Chips’ emphasis on sustainable farming.
While exploring how the sun could interact with the moose, I came across a Siberian myth about a celestial moose catching the sun in its antlers. Although the story was not culturally Canadian, the image itself felt powerful. The idea of the sun resting between the antlers became a defining direction for the logo.
As the logo direction solidified, I shifted focus to the broader visual identity. I considered how the brand should feel, who it was for, and how it would appear in the real world.
I knew I wanted Wild Chips to feel warm and inviting, similar to being in sunlight, with vibrant colors that referenced the outdoors. Early patterns and illustrations helped test how that feeling could translate across the brand system.
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Everything developing All at once
Verbal Identity & Brand assets
While the logo still needed refinement, other aspects of the project required attention. At this stage, work happened simultaneously: logo development, verbal identity, mockups, and brand writing all progressed together. I focused on building a complete design system, carefully considering how Wild Chips would present itself across every touchpoint.