Promotional Product Design


Retail Packaging

Project: Packaging and Retail Displays Design
Role: Designer, Production Artist
Client: Ghirardelli Chocolate
Key Skills: Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Product design, Concept development
Summary: A collection of designs and illustrations for retail product packaging and POS displays. I worked on the final mechanical files released to the printers, as well as photo-realistic visualizations of what the products would look like once produced, for use by the marketing teams when selling to external vendors.

All of the images on this page may look like photographs, but are actually Adobe Photoshop renderings meant to look realistic.

The company’s Marketing team would often request imagery of upcoming products for promotional or sales meetings with retail vendors, but because the products had not yet been produced (in order to photograph), I would be tasked with producing “photography” for the non-existent items, using only design files, and flat printer’s dielines, to aid in visualizing.

ghirardelli3_set

The above are all seasonal products, for Easter and Valentine’s Day.

ghirardelli2_set

Above left, three free-standing in-store displays. Above right, an Easter coupon, available in stores and as magazine or newspaper inserts. All product shown in the coupon flyer—even in the photographed basket—is fictional; actual product had not yet been produced.

ghirardelli1_set

Above are two additional counter- or shelf-sitting displays. All product and the displays themselves were fabricated and painted for illustrative purposes.


Promotional Literature

Project: Recruiting trifold pamphlet
Role: Art Director, Designer, Copywriter, Production Artist
Client: KidsDuo, Hokkaido Tsuushin Tokki
Key Skills: Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Print design
Summary: A 6-panel trifold used for recruiting English teachers for a chain of private children’s schools in northern Japan.

tokki_brochure_fin

A chain of franchised children’s English schools in northern Japan was looking to expand its business and needed to attract foreign teachers, so an informational pamphlet was commissioned to that end.

I served as the entire team for this one: Art Director, Designer, Production Artist, Photographer, Copywriter, and Print Producer. Basically, everything you see (including the white space in some sense) is my work. Of note to anyone unfamiliar with Hokkaido or Japan’s geography, the large shape on the front cover is a very stylized representation of the island’s shape, and the swath of photo diamonds on the inside spread is a rough representation of Japan as a collection of islands.

Distributed throughout high-traffic areas for foreigners, this trifold generated an immediate increase of interest for job-seeking English-speakers, allowing the business to expand with additional locations.


Direct Marketing

Project: Direct mail envelope design
Role: Art Director & Designer, Brand Design & Integration team
Client: Best Buy Co.
Key Skills: Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Brand Design
Summary: Redesign of the envelope delivered to millions of customers per year; the plain blue kit with a simple logo lacked energy and failed to generate enthusiasm amongst recipients.

A Failure of Communication

Best Buy sends physical mail to millions of customers per year–sometimes coupons, promotional offers, or other communique–but found a distinct lack of enthusiasm when polling recipients amid waning response rates. Surprising no one, it turns out sending people something that looks like junk mail or workaday marketing chirashi will generate disinterest.

Recognising an opportunity to upgrade their brand image and also improve redemption without having to sweeten the offers, the underwhelming envelope needed replacing. That said, while the enclosed communique also underwent a redesign, this case study discusses only the envelope.

ese_set
Left: the selected concept, final design. Top shows the rear with flap. Bottom shows postage and address areas.
Right: alternate concept

Concepts Galore

All said and done, I produced well over a dozen concepts, each in varying stages of polish; four of them shared here. Aside from demonstrating diversity of thought, comparing the different ideas allows one to discern the various anatomical aspects of the envelope perhaps not otherwise obvious: the addressee area (reversed/white text not allowed), the return address, and the postage area.

At the time, efforts to transform the organisation into one more “customer centric” permeated virtually all discussions related to marketing.

For this project, I was the designer and art director. I produced pencil concepts, rough and polished presentational comps, and helped prepare files for press.

Physical Product Design


Gift Cards

Project: BBY Gift Card Program 
Role: Art Director & Designer, Brand Design & Integration team
Client: Best Buy Co.
Key Skills: Photoshop, Illustrator, Brand Identity, Product Design
Summary: An ongoing program of various gift card assortments. Each card targeted either a specific drive time, holiday, season, or consumer demographic. For each card, I began at the concept stage, finished at the press check, and everything in between.

Below is a gallery of assorted Gift Cards from my time with Best Buy. Photography of the final, printed product is shown where available.

Click any image to enlarge detail.

tweenskulls_fin

This is a trifold gift card that was produced to appeal to younger, edgier folks than the typical “vanilla” (slightly generic) cards otherwise available. Had to fight a bit to get approval for the skulls appearing on the game controller; the original concepts had heaps more, and my brainstorming files filled with similar odd/twisted cute-but-disturbing entries.

This card features UV spot gloss and spot thermographic (raised) texture for the white areas. My role spanned from the original concept sketch to illustrator, final mechanical production, and press check.

openvalue_fin

The open value, or “generic”, gift card is (or rather was at the time; I have no current data for comparison) Best Buy’s number one SKU; meaning it alone accounts for more revenue per year than any other single item they sell, exceeding a billion dollars annually. This makes it incredibly valuable as a brand vehicle—not just a product, and by far the most visible, high-dollar design I’ve ever created.

Some background on the project: at the time of its redesign, the company had been using a couple of flashy, and frankly gimmicky/gaudy designs that relied on cheap lenticular or hologram effects to gain attention. I understand the time and place for these things, but at a time when the company was looking to elevate their brand design, public image, and sophistication, such gimmicks are toys better left behind in childhood.

As such, a streamlined, elegant approach that put the brand name, marks and elements first. Solid on-brand blue, simple typography, and the use of subtle textures and contrast between shiny vs matte to do the talking. The card is a color-matched solid core plastic with a spot silver foil, and the giant logo on the carrier is a UV spot matte that exhibits different effects at varying viewing angles.

This design changed very little from my first concept presentation, and was received well both internally and publicly. I served as the Art Director, Designer, and Production Artist for this project, and assisted with on-site press checks.

demin_final

A brand-focused card, we decided to go all out with this one. Embossed, spot UV, spot matte, custom spot foil, and hand-affixed jewels to both the carrier and card. Shown left are two concepts for a gift bag, which eventually became the gift card.

My role spanned from original concept, to photographer, designer, production artist for final mechanicals, and on-press art director.

mothersday_set

A gift card, available in Spring 2007. The brief was targeted at higher-middle income mothers, or at least as gifts for said demographic. We were to illicit a bit of “boutique”, plus a sense of abundance/selection. So I came up with a box of brand-specific chocolates. When closed, it looks like a box of chocolates, replete with a ribbon. When opened, you see the assortment of sweets.

Shown left are my original illustration and a digital comp. Shown right are my original concept sketch, my rough digital draft, and photography of the final product to show my workflow and vision carried out between media. I was responsible for the concept, client presentation, art direction and supervision of an illustrator hired for the final image, and the press check.

dadsday_final

After having a Mother’s Day card aimed at a more sophisticated, upscale demographic, we of course needed one to match the fathers in the same category as well.

Shown left are my original pencil concept, and my first rough digital comp. An additional, unused tackle box concept is also shown. Finally, photography of the finished, printed illustration, open and closed. The closed design mimics a fine leather wallet, and the card design used a layered process with metallic inks to give depth and some visual flash.

Pencils and digital comps are my direct work; I art directed the final illustration via a sourced illustrator, and oversaw the printing process/press check.

brandmetal_final

A brand card that aimed at a more sophisticated, tech-savvy or early-adopter demographic. This project used a silver ink with 1C overprint for the textured metal effect on the carrier, and a layered card that shows different elements on the fronts and backs of each plastic layer, to give a parallax, 3D depth effect.

My original concept is on the left, and photography of the final printed card/carrier on the right. I art directed an illustrator for the final, prepared mechanical files as the project production artist, and oversaw the printing process/press check.

sled_final

A holiday card that plays off the shape of the Best Buy tag. This card uses a clear card technology, so surrounding the sled body and between its wooden slots are completely clear.

My original concepts are on the left; photography of the final card and carrier are on the right.

I served as the designer from concept to the final design, with the exception of art directing an external illustrator, who produced the woodgrain and metallic elements of the sled; as well as assisted on production art of the mechanical files and attended all press checks.

snowman_final

This holiday card is, conceptually, one of my favorites, simply due to it’s light-hearted, whimsical take on the Best Buy brand and its “abundance” component. This project features a color-shifting metallic fleck on the card, shifting between blue, teal, and the purple tones visible above.

Shown left is my original digital concept; shown right is photography of the final product. I served as the designer from concept, to art directing an external illustrator for the final illustration. I assisted with production art of the mechanical files, and attended press checks.

Cutting Room Floor

speaker_set

As gift cards became more popular in the mid ’00s, ways of standing out amid the massive selection became more important for the business end. That included exploring new substrates (plastic, clear, metal, etc.), new inks (metallic, color-changing, textured, etc.), and new form factors.

One of the alternate form factors our group explored was a gift card that doubled as a standalone speaker–requiring only an external audio source be plugged in via a standard headphone-style jack. Yes, it was thicker than a standard card, making swiping a magnetic strip impossible, and yes, the speaker was tiny and didn’t sound like much, but it was certainly on-brand as electronics and entertainment go, and something new to the gift card arena.

Included are a number of my pencil concept sketches, plus a number of digital comps.

dms_set

Above are a variety of concepts to be used for an online music service, each accompanied by my original sketch to illustrate my typical work flow. The dark blue cards in the lower-center were ultimately chosen for production, along with a third design in the series not pictured here.

Less formally presented but my favourite… the 3-in-1 jewel case card:

How the concept breaks down. For every vellum overlay, two ink colours would be “hidden”. For example, green hides cyan and yellow while darkening magenta, etc.

The brief was to design three entertainment gift cards, all to be merchandised amongst the in-store media (music, dvds, games).

To make the most of a limited budget, with some inspired and cunning use of the physical sciences, I devised a single design that would be transformed for each category using a different colour vellum overlay inside the jewel case. By exploiting properties of light, I could effectively hide two ink colours with a single transparent overlay.


B2B Gift Package

Project: B2B holiday gift package
Role: Art Director & Designer, Brand Design & Integration team
Client: Best Buy Co.
Key Skills: Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Brand Design, Product Design
Summary: A premium holiday gift package for B2B customers, complete with a mailable box/packaging, exclusive discount coupons, and signed greeting card.

b2bthankyou_final

Every year, Best Buy produces a special holiday greeting card to its business customers (B2B), as a thank you for their patronage. When approached to lead the project one year, I took things a step beyond a simple greeting card, and created more of an actual gift package, one that also matched the company’s holiday campaign, which included gift box iconography and copy.

The box includes an additional flap that folds over the messaging visible on the above image (leftmost two samples), with space for mailing. Once opened, the recipient reads “You shine.”, on a shiny, silver foil box. Sliding out that box reveals a secondary message printed on the inside of the carton, “We thank you.” Inside the box is an actual greeting card, hand-signed by the team and containing a special offer coupon. The elegance and simplicity throughout this piece was really satisfying, and went over remarkably well with recipients.

My role extended from the original concept, where I literally spent the first week working through the form factor, hand-making various mockups to test; to the design and production of the final mechanical files.


Industrial Product Design

Project: Private label product line revision 
Role: Art Director & Industrial Designer
Client: Insignia
Key Skills: Photoshop, Illustrator, Brand Identity, Product Design
Summary: A new line of private label products struggled to achieve a cohesive—and upscale—image across its variety of products.

Many consumers immediately associate private label (or as they’re commonly referred to in the pejorative, “generic”) products with similar, but inferior quality, at least compared to brand-name equivalents.

What those same consumers don’t know is that in many cases, the generics are manufactured by the same factories on the same equipment, etc. as their more expensive counterparts. Swapping a mould, logo, or packaging design between them is almost trivial.

The Insignia brand manufactures a heap of private label electronic goods for Best Buy, but early in their journey, they struggled to create a cohesive identity amongst their product lines, because each was produced independently by whichever facility was manufacturing it.

Left: the individually serviceable but collectively unrelated original A/V components
Right: the family resemblance is not only obvious, but its refined elegance suitable for any discerned A/V enthusiasts

No more apparent a case made than that of home theatre products, when they’re often literally stacked together. Insignia A/V offerings were all over the place, literally and figuratively, because each factory did whatever they wanted to satisfy the technical requirements and called it a day.

I was charged with providing branding and industrial design support, both to align the products’ appearances but also elevate their chicness, especially when placed on shelves alongside high-design and higher-priced competition. The scattershot fit and finish simply reflected poorly on both the products and brand.

A peek at one example of product families, we can see on the left the somewhat schizophrenic and mismatched pairing of a receiver and its cohort Blu-ray player.

My recommendation for revisions to both—staying within budget—is shown on the right. All done completely in Photoshop (and with vector shapes/layer styles for resolution independence no less).

These efforts did spark something of a renaissance within Insignia’s product and manufacturing group, evident to this day in their more well-conceived line of goods.

I actually enjoyed this enough that I considered returning to school to get certified/qualified in industrial design. However, in the course of informational interviews with existing professionals, all interestingly shared the same warning: “if you want to do industrial design, just realise that everything you ever do will end up in a landfill someday”.

Ouch. Digital products it shall be then.