Bags of worm poop

Here's a package design I did for my Dad over Christmas vacation. 

My Dad got into gardening in his early teens, while growing weed in the California wilderness. (Nothing motivates a hippie to learn gardening more than the promise of a healthy crop of buds) He got his life in order not long after that, but not before becoming an expert gardener. Now, decades later, he's honed his craft to the point that he grows delicious and comically large vegetables in the desert using nothing more than bark chips and worm castings he's carefully cultivated himself. (For the unfamiliar, worm castings are worm crap)

Serious, with bark chips in the desert!

His gardens are so successful that he started selling his worm castings online. I took a look at the presentation and nearly had an aesthetic heart attack!

Fistfuls of worm goop! BLUE COMIC SANS!!!

I figured I'd make him a package design for Christmas. I sat down with him and we talked about what he wanted in a design. He wanted to get across the idea that this was made by hand, with care. I figured an etching would get this idea across perfectly. Plus, I've been dying to do another one. For imagery, I suggested he try to avoid the idea that this was a form of manure and instead focus on the fact that this makes stuff grow like mad. "And please" I said,"No goofy worm mascot!" His idea was a hand holding dirt with a plant growing out of it. I liked it, so we checked to see if it'd been done before.

It had. A lot.

I kicked around the idea for a bit till I came up with a design that I felt got the idea across. Then I bucked down for a solid day of sketching and etching. By midnight my hand had cramped solid, but I'd finally made this.

I felt pretty good about it, or at least I was just happy to be done with it. Then it slowly dawned on me... when you stamp something, you flip it over... meaning the image is reversed... meaning you have to print text in reverse...

So I cut out the text and re-etched it all over again in reverse.

Done! Since it's a stamp he can stamp the design straight onto the bags. Hopefully this'll up the presentation. And hey, if you want a monster garden, I know a guy.