Working with Irish illustrators has long been a firm favourite here at Bean and Goose. So to celebrate our 5th Birthday this year we decided what better way then to bring our Illustrator Series through to our core range.
We fell in love with the work of Aran Quinn, an Irish illustrator who has been living in Brooklyn, New York for the past 9 years. He communicated the energy and feel of Bean and Goose and was able to bring back the fun you should feel when enjoying our chocolate.
Cat Robertson, Design Director at Wove gave a short and simple brief to Aran, to position the Irish landscape as a backdrop for individual stories of nature and flavours. From the shores of Achill to the flower filled fields of Wexford, the illustrations needed to capture each bar's core ingredients and their local origins. We gave Aran the freedom to bring his unique style and creative edge to telling these stories with his particular sense of adventure, fun and energy.
The work began for Aran at the height of Covid-19 but being away from nature at this time brought with it a soothing quality when designing the art work. He researched colours, flowers & wildlife from the areas where we source our ingredients and included these elements in each of the illustrated wraps for the bars from our new core range. And moving through the project Aran said he found particular ‘compositions and moments I wanted to bring to life’.
Through his own imagination he was able to bring to life our love of using local ingredients by finding ‘little stories and scenarios in each chocolate bar. I pictured myself in Achill going for a swim or surf and then chilling out after with a chocolate bar with local ingredients from that location. Or sitting down in a little Irish cottage with a fire warming up the house and eating a smoky sea salted bar.’
Aran may be lusting over the flavour of our Dark Umami Seaweed bar but when pushed his favourite designed wrap is the Sour Cherry Orchard as it made him want ‘to jump into the scene, lay on the grass and be enveloped by nature.’
Originally posted 02.09.20