Banana Chips Packaging
Services
DESIGN SYSTEMS
ART DIRECTION
Year
2025
Info
House of happy leaf was created to take Indian flavours beyond India, translating the energy and character of local culture into packaging that could connect with a global audience.
Each pack is built around original, city-inspired illustrations, bringing together Indian locals with characters and cultural cues from the destination city. The result is a packaging system that feels distinctly Indian while remaining playful, contemporary, and globally approachable.
The project involved developing an illustration-led visual language across the range, balancing storytelling, flavour differentiation, brand consistency, and strong shelf presence.
timeline
3 weeks
Before moving into design, I explored a visual direction that could make the packaging feel distinctly Indian while still being contemporary and globally relevant. The moodboard brought together references from illustration, Indian-inspired graphics, expressive typography, vibrant colour, and existing snack packaging to establish the right balance between culture, flavour and shelf impact.
A key focus was understanding how illustration could become more than decoration. I wanted it to communicate personality, place and storytelling, while creating a system flexible enough to evolve across different flavours and cities.
This stage also helped evaluate the category and competitive landscape identifying familiar visual cues within snack packaging while finding opportunities for the brand to feel more expressive, character-led and culturally rooted.
Direction established:
Bold colour • Illustration-led storytelling • Indian cultural cues • Expressive typography • Playful personality • Strong shelf presence
Once the visual direction was established, I translated it into a clear packaging framework that could work consistently across the full product range. I started by defining the information hierarchy balancing the brand, flavour, product name, city-led storytelling and essential product information within a limited pack surface.
Each variant follows the same underlying structure, while changes in flavour naming and location-based messaging give every pack its own personality. Establishing this system early helped create consistency across the range without making every variant feel identical, while also leaving space for the illustration-led storytelling introduced in the next stage.
The result was a flexible foundation that could scale across flavours, cities and future product extensions while remaining immediately recognisable as one brand.
With the packaging structure in place, I explored the characters that would bring each flavour story to life. I developed multiple expressions, gestures and compositions to find personalities that felt playful, approachable and distinctive.
The sketches also helped explore how Indian culture could meet the local character of each destination creating a visual connection between where the flavour comes from and where it is going.
Exploration focused on
Character personality · Expressions · Hand gestures · Cultural cues · Composition · Storytelling
Before introducing the characters, I developed the background of each pack first. Since every variant connects two different places, establishing the environment helped define the cultural context, mood and visual story of each flavour.
Working this way also helped me plan the composition and colour balance before adding the characters. Once the setting felt right, the characters could be introduced naturally into the scene rather than feeling like separate illustrations placed on top.
This approach helped each pack tell its own story while still feeling connected as part of one larger range.
Focus: Cultural context · Composition · Colour balance · Visual storytelling · Character integration
Once the environments were established, I introduced the characters into each scene. Rather than treating them as decorative elements, I wanted them to feel like part of the world already created around each flavour.
Their clothing, expressions, gestures and interactions were developed to reflect the personality and cultural energy of each location. I also explored their scale and placement carefully so they could become a strong storytelling element without competing with the product name or flavour information.
This helped turn each pack from a destination-inspired design into a small cross-cultural story connecting people, places and flavours.
Focus: Character personality · Cultural cues · Expressions & gestures · Composition · Storytelling · Visual hierarchy
The final packaging brings all the layers together bold typography, location-inspired environments, expressive characters and flavour-led colour.
Each pack was designed to feel energetic and distinctive on shelf while still belonging to one cohesive family. The illustrations transform the product into more than a snack pack; they tell a playful story of Indian flavours travelling across cultures, cities and communities around the world.
The result is a packaging system that feels bold, joyful, culturally expressive and unmistakably global.
