Nine Dog
Branding | Package Design
Overview
In the winter of 2019, I took my love of food to a new level when I decided to make a bottled hot sauce. This would serve as a thoughtful and delicious gift for friends and family.
Of course, I couldn’t let the opportunity of making these special and unique pass me up. I developed a brand I could use for this, and future batches of my special hot sauce blend.
Approach
The Nine Dog brand was inspired by my Mexican roots.
A nod to Aztec mythology, the name represents the Aztec Goddess Chantico – goddess of fire, the familial hearth, and pleasure and pain. Like the Chantico, the hot sauce is hot-as-fire, pleasant to eat – sometimes a little painful, and very much an expression of love through gastronomy.
Chantico went by the name of ‘Nine Dogs’, her calendric name. It is said that Chantico gained this name after she broke a fast during a religious celebration. As punishment, the Aztec creator Tonacatecuhtli, turned her into a dog.
With an Aztec flair, the graphics followed suit to represent the origins of the story. The dog was inspired by the Xoloitzcuintle dog Aztec glyph, and my late dog, Rocky. The style mimics that of old pre-hispanic Mexican art and pays an homage to a history of rich culture in food.