The Bare Minimum
82% of adults aged 20 to 35 say cereal doesn't fit into their current routine, and most of the ones who still eat it are having it as a late-night dessert.
The Bare Minimum is built around a single buyer: a 27-year-old who eats cereal at midnight, is wellness-adjacent without being wellness-obsessed, and gets turned off by both hyper-functional packaging and "better for you" framing. The brands available to her hadn't been updated in a decade and were still being marketed to families with kids.
The line has four flavors, each named after a mood state:
- After Hours: Cereal, for when the craving hits at 11:47 PM.
- Not Today: Cereal, for hangovers (emotional and physical).
- Almost Ready: Cereal, because mornings are a scam.
- Oof: Cereal, for the "don't talk to me" days.
I designed the brand system end-to-end: positioning, naming, typography, color palette, packaging, and a social system designed to scroll-stop on Instagram and TikTok. The packaging is 1-pint single-serve cups and a giftable 4-pack tray, built for shelf placement at retailers like Erewhon, Foxtrot, and Pop-Up Grocer, with the side copy "Add milk. Or don't." The tone across all of it is soft chaos meets snack therapy.
Cereal, because mornings are a scam.