Tools
Canva, Adobe Illustrator, Blender
Role
Illustrating, Branding, Package Designing, 3D Rendering
Project Context
During Spring semester of my Junior year, I decided I wanted to develop my design skills and learn some new skills specifically through the context of package design while still incorporating research concepts that were important to me. During Spring semester, Miami University's College of Creative Arts holds an event called Sparkfest where students can sell their creative work. The previous year I had sold crochet keychains of animals and this year wanted to turn them into more of a marketed product with their own package design.
Problem
Creating a visually appealing package design that effectively communicated what I was trying to sell. It had to be something that fit the general aesthetic of whatever keychain concept I chose for this year and would be appealing to the variety of students that come through Sparkfest.
Solution
A blind box package design that focuses on making all of the animal keychains into their own identifiable critters. Clearly labeled to ensure there was no confusion about what was being sold. Following the general meadow, pastels, and cute aesthetic of the original keychains.
Concept Sketching
After making the initial sketches for all three concepts and adding the inspiration pictures, I surveyed a couple of friends who had helped me sell the keychains the previous year. Generally, they all agreed that making a packaging design for the keychains that sold best last year was the best path forward. I then created a mood board with a font, colors, and inspiration pictures that matched the general look I was hoping to go with for this package design.
Dieline Sketching
Following picking a concept was making a sketch of what the actual packaging design would look like. I spent a little time looking up dieline templates online until I eventually settled on using my own measurements for the card box dieline creator in templatemaker.nl. As pictured below, I altered the template a little bit to account for bleed and ensure the dieline was set up properly within Illustrator.
Very roughly referencing the dieline template I had just put into Illustrator, I sketched the package design onto paper. A few of the ideas that were in the very rough initial concept sketch were included in their sketch for the dieline design. During this sketching process I also started giving each of the animals names in contribute to the character aspect seen on a lot of blind boxes. This sketch was then placed into the dieline template in Illustrator.
First Dieline Iteration
For the first iteration of my package design I started by putting the most basic shapes, using the sketch as reference, onto my dieline. The concept also changed a little bit during this step, with the sun moving from the top of the design to the back of the design in order to take up some of the empty space. Stars were then scattered across the top of the box to keep some visual interest in that area.
After setting up all of the basic shapes, I started adding a lot more visual interest in the design by shading via gradients and opacity. The edges of the hills included a roughen effect to look like blades of grass. Additionally, the characters were moved around on the sides to make them less cramped.
Iterating
After creating the first iteration of the packaging design, I wrote some interview questions. I interviewed two different people, one being college age and the other being a teenager, in order to get some insight about what worked well and what would need to be changed.
I then made changes to the packaging design referencing the notes I had taken during interviews. All changes included what was changed about them and the specific quote from the participant that encouraged that change to be made.
Creating the Mockup & Final Dieline
After making iterations on the design using participant feedback, I started creating a mockup within Blender. This specific part of the process was an entirely new skill for me to learn, as I had very minimal experience with Blender. I created a very basic photoshoot setup with a cube acting as a sample of the package.
During this part of the process I also made some very minimal changes to the package design to ensure that where the hills ended on the front and side of the package actually lined up when put together.
Finally, I made some final touches like making some bumps on the cube to emulated embossing on a package before rendering the final mockup pictures.
Pictured below is the final dieline after adjustments were made during the mockup process in Blender.
Conclusion
There is a fair amount I learned from this project. Not only did I get more experience with programs that I had used a decent amount for other projects within my major, like Illustrator, but I also got experience with programs that I had little to no experience with previously. Additionally, this was just an incredibly fun project for me to do. It contributed to a hobby of mine that I'm super passionate about and allowed me to explore new aspects of selling my creations that I hadn't previously considered.