QARES. Cherbet, canned cold.
Self-initiated concept. Naming, identity, web design, 3D
The lemonade sold from steel pots in Algiers streets, put in a can.
- Client
- None. A concept, not a real product
- Year
- 2026
- Sector
- Drinks, Algeria
- Role
- Name, identity, illustration, copy, web design, 3D, front-end
Everyone in Algiers knows cherbet. Nobody sells it in a can.
Underneath it
It lives in the street
A steel pot, a ladle, a plastic glass. It only exists in summer and Ramadan, and only where someone set up a stall.
Lemon drinks all say the same thing
Fresh, natural, zesty. The shelf is full of lemon flavour. The real thing has to sound different.
Local, without looking old
It should feel like the street pot, but sit next to imported cans in a fridge and still get picked.
Who drinks it
People who grew up on the street one.
After the match, at iftar, on the beach at Sidi Fredj, stuck in traffic. They already know the taste. They want it cold, any day of the year.
Keep the recipe. Change the container.
The page follows the drink.
A whole lemon, cut open, filled, then gone into a can. You scroll through how cherbet is made before you see what it costs.
A 3D lemon, built in code. It turns with your mouse.
It splits in two. One half holds cold cherbet that ripples when you move over it.
The halves fly apart and the can drops in. The label changes as it turns.
Three flavours. Each card fills with its own colour.
Two lemons, less sugar than a soda, citrus from the Mitidja.
The footer is a game. Cut the lemons, leave the bombs.
Three calls.
Name it what people already say
Qares is what Algiers darija calls the lemon. The root means sharp, biting. Nobody has to learn it, and it reads the same in Latin and Arabic: قارص.
Say the numbers, not the adjectives
No fresh, no zesty. Two lemons, 100% Algerian citrus, zero preservatives, 68 kcal. A lemon seller would explain it like that.
One colour per can
Citron, Sanguine, Naânaâ. Each flavour owns its colour and takes over the whole card when you pick it. Ink and limewash carry everything else.
Sour first, sweet second.
The same order as the drink. The lemon leads everything: the name, the colour, the first thing you see.
Colour
Ink from the blue of Bab El Oued doors, limewash from the white walls of Algiers. One colour for each flavour, never two side by side.
Bab ink
#10233F
Limewash
#F6F1E4
Pith
#FCEFB4
Citron
#F2C318
Sanguine
#D9472B
Naânaâ
#2F8F5B
Typography
Big Shoulders Display for headlines, tall and narrow like a painted shop sign. Caveat Brush for one note per section, like a marker price on a fruit crate. Schibsted Grotesk for everything you just need to read. Sizes and spacing all step on 1.618.
The can
Three wrap-around labels, drawn flat and mapped on a can modelled in code. The Arabic name sits under the Latin one at the same weight.
Illustration
No photo shoot, so everything is drawn: the lemon, the half, the blood orange, the mint, the orange blossom, the leaf. They fly into the cards and into the game.
Voice
- TaglineCherbet, canned cold.
- SupportTwo lemons. One can. No shortcuts.
- HeroCold cherbet for hot afternoons.
- Sign offSaha.
From the lemon to the last can.
lemons in every can
Algerian citrus
preservatives
kcal per 250 ml
