The Pearl Caviar Company
Winter 2026 · Packaging, Interactive Design
Context
Tasked with creating a packaging design with ‘a sense of play,’ This project speculates a caviar company that brings affordable roe into new markets. The inspiration came from Hansen family history, with my great-grandfather being an early sturgeon caviar importer to the United States.
Challenges
Fish roe has an unusual position in the American market: it is often perceived as either an expensive luxury or an unfamiliar specialty ingredient. The packaging had to speak for quality and tradition, but feel vernacular and unelitist. Furthermore, use of branding and visual elements was constrained by color and complexity: Graphics required simplicity to let the product shine.
Solution
The final product is a playful and contemporary take on heritage seafood branding, aligning with quality signifiers while subverting expectations with some subtle on-shelf interactivity. The exquisite corpse-style illustrations fall across three distinct varieties of roe, leaving room for range expansion and iteration.
Deliverables
- 1 Jar of Sockeye Salmon Roe
- 1 Jar of Northern Pike Roe
- 1 Jar of Flying Fish Roe
- 3 Dielines
Final Deliverables
^ An example of an ‘exquisite corpse’ formed by three jars.
Background
^ An advertisement for Romanoff Caviar, Ferdinand Hansen’s caviar company, that hung in my bedroom growing up
^ A New York Times Obituary for Ferdinand Hansen
Research
^ A composite of research/ideation slides collected before sketching. Noticing products that illustrate food vs reveal food, how they appear on-shelf, how illustrations are treated.
^ A collection of roe-producing fish, prices, and initial ‘exquisite corpse’ play.
^ A composite of research/ideation slides collected before sketching. Noticing products that illustrate food vs reveal food, how they appear on-shelf, how illustrations are treated.
^ A collection of roe-producing fish, prices, and initial ‘exquisite corpse’ play.
Visual Ideation
Packaging Development
^Rudimentary fish drawings that I drew on paper and scanned to create print illustrations
^Print PDF for physical mockup
^Work in progress digital mockups using texture=