When Side Projects Get Hot: Designing My Own Hot Sauce Line

September Harvest Hot Sauce: From Kitchen Experiment to Market Shelf

Fall farmer’s market season is gearing up in Jacksonville! 🌶️

This time last year, I was deep in one of my favorite personal projects: building the brand identity for September Harvest 9H Hot Sauce, my family’s artisan hot sauce line. Here are a few of the design directions we explored during our focus group testing.

As a creative director with 15+ years in CPG packaging, I approached it like any client project: bold storytelling, clear strategy, and packaging built to stand out on a crowded shelf (or in this case, in a crowded market).

The challenge: Turn a kitchen experiment into a market-ready brand that felt authentic and unforgettable. The process: From label design to e-comm, market booth, and sales materials, every piece worked together to share our story of California-inspired flavors made fresh in Jacksonville. The payoff: We went from “friends telling us to sell this” to a real brand with repeat customers at local farmers markets.

Sometimes the most rewarding projects aren't the million dollar global budgets, they're the micro launches close to home.

What passion projects are you working on to fuel your creativity?