5Fludds Sauce

Bottle of 5Fludds barbecue sauce beside grilled chicken
CLIENT

5Fludds Sauce

ROLE

Brand Designer

Web Designer

Creative Director

YEAR

2023

SERVICES

Brand Identity

Packaging Design

Web Design

Art Direction

Brand Strategy

01

Context

02

Problem

03

Approach

04

The Work

05

Outcome

06

Reflection

View project ↗

/ Context

Context

01

A father's 1983 barbecue recipe, turned into a brand Cleveland can buy.

A father's 1983 barbecue recipe, turned into a brand Cleveland can buy.

/ Problem

Problem

02

A family recipe isn't a brand. The sauce had four decades of history behind it and nothing on the outside that told that story. It needed a look people would remember, a bottle that could hold its own on a crowded grocery shelf, and a home online where people could learn the story, find recipes and buy. And all of it had to feel like Jake's dad: warm, proud and rooted in family.

A family recipe isn't a brand. The sauce had four decades of history behind it and nothing on the outside that told that story. It needed a look people would remember, a bottle that could hold its own on a crowded grocery shelf, and a home online where people could learn the story, find recipes and buy. And all of it had to feel like Jake's dad: warm, proud and rooted in family.

/ Approach

Approach

03

Lead with heritage. The goal was something timeless that catches your eye and tells the story before you read a word. Gold, because it felt royal and earned. A heritage mark built around the family name and Est. 1983. A voice built around one mission: bringing families back to the dinner table. And on every surface, a nod to the craft. Natural ingredients, bottled and packaged by hand, with care.

Lead with heritage. The goal was something timeless that catches your eye and tells the story before you read a word. Gold, because it felt royal and earned. A heritage mark built around the family name and Est. 1983. A voice built around one mission: bringing families back to the dinner table. And on every surface, a nod to the craft. Natural ingredients, bottled and packaged by hand, with care.

/ The Work

The Work

04

BRAND IDENTITY

Gold felt royal and earned, like something passed down rather than designed. The identity had to be timeless enough to sit next to brands that have been on shelves for decades, and warm enough to still feel like a family recipe.

THE BOTTLE

Family Recipe. Est. 1983. Natural ingredients, bottled by hand. The label tells the story at a glance, so it travels with the sauce from the shelf to the dinner table.

WEBSITE

The site tells the family story, shares recipes made with the sauce and sells online. I prototyped it in Figma from a Relume kit, wrote local SEO copy with help from AI and built it in Shopify. Week one was the prototype, week two the build, week three the shoot and launch.

ART DIRECTION

AI let me show exactly how the photos should feel before anyone picked up a camera. Josh Dobay used the lookbook to shoot the product photography and video that power the website and social, swapping straight into the spots the mood boards had held.

GROWTH

5Fludds is now stocked in 15 Cleveland-area markets, from Murray Hill Market to Nature’s Oasis in Lakewood. I still work with Jake on brand and strategy as they push into more stores.

/ Outcome

Outcome

05

15

Cleveland-area markets

3

Weeks from brief to launch

1983

Family recipe since

“Our mission is to help build communities one meal at a time.”

/ Reflection

Reflection

06

This one was personal before it was a project. The job was to take a recipe built on love and memory and give it a brand strong enough to compete on a shelf, without losing what made it special. Heritage, craft and family weren't design themes here. They were the truth of the product. Seeing it on shelves around Cleveland, with a father's story on every bottle, is the kind of outcome you don't get from a style guide.

This one was personal before it was a project. The job was to take a recipe built on love and memory and give it a brand strong enough to compete on a shelf, without losing what made it special. Heritage, craft and family weren't design themes here. They were the truth of the product. Seeing it on shelves around Cleveland, with a father's story on every bottle, is the kind of outcome you don't get from a style guide.

Unrefined meal containers wrapped in black branded sleeves
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