Initial Ideas

To begin with, I had to draw four initial ideas for a beer bottle carrier, the sketches below are my ideas.

I decided to do four quick drawings and not to think about it too much in order for me to get some ideas down on paper. Once I had done this I decided to go in to more detail for each one.

Idea 1.

This first idea is based on a wooden crate, though I understand the wood material is not to be used, and well couldnt be used unless other materials like glue and screws were used to hold it together. It would be interesting to see if it could be made out of cardboard, thick cardboard to ensure it is strong enough. I would try and use one piece of card that is sliced and cut into a shape that doesn't require little or no glue. The handle would have to be made out of cardboard too, shaped in a cylinder shape.

Idea 2.

For this idea,I thought about using a cylinder shape for the whole packaging. A different shape than the regular. It would use a hexagan type slots as shown above to keep the bottles from touching and reduce damage. it would have windows going around it to show each of the bottles that the consumer brought. The logo would appear under every other window, to ensure that the name of the brand was always on show, but would crowd up the packaging. The 'extra' information would go underneath so as not to clutter the side, and to focus on just the branding.

Idea 3.

This is more of an original idea based on things I have seen around. The sides are used by cutting the cardboard into diagonal sides to keep the bottle from falling out the front, but still enough empty space so the consumer can see the product inside. I also wanted the handle to be cut in the shape of the bowler hat (representing the brands). Though I think this idea would work, I do not think it is different enough, nor have a second use to it.

Idea 4.

The final idea I had was based on a brief case type shape. Using doors on either side of the box, which opens up to show the bottles inside, I thought the idea of the bowlers hat being the shape of the window was a good idea and incorporates the branding, but however I worry that it will not show enough of the two bottles on either side, enough for the consumer to see it properly, whereas the middle one will be completely on show. I thought that with having two sides to the box to 'show' you would be able to have the cider on one side and the ale on the other, maybe using the two companies colours to help differentiate between the two sides. 

With these four ideas, I have not thought of them to have a second use yet, which might in time, rule them out as contenders, but for now I just wanted to focus on having an idea for the shape of the primary use, and if that works and is a strong idea, to work from there and see what I could come up with. This might be the wrong way of doing this, but I thought it was best to start somewhere at least! We shell see!