Spring 2024
Overview
The kitsch project tasked us with conceptualizing and designing an original kitschy product where the package design for the product is the main focus. The package needed to be a display package with which you could see through to the actual kitsch product. Furthermore, the display package was to be printed on one side only and was to be designed in such a way that it could hold the product without any extra pieces.
Research + Brainstorming
The scope of this project was super overwhelming to me despite being really excited about the concept. I started by brainstorming a lot of ridiculous ideas but none were jumping out at me, and I didn't feel inspired or excited about any of them. This was weird because I absolutely love kitschy/gag gift products, but I felt so blah about all of my own ideas. I began by researching some existing gag gift products as well as some intriguing package designs.
Sketches + Doodles
The three ideas I liked the most were the baby's first pondering orb, the brewlette beer pack, and the cat high five kit. I tried to roughly sketch multiple different packaging concepts for each idea just so I didn't get stuck on my first ideas. I envisioned the baby's first pondering orb product to be like many of the existing gag gift products in my examples that look the most 'real' as possible and use Photoshop with real images to make it look convincing. I wanted this product to imitate the packaging design of actual Fisher-Price toy boxes. The second idea, brewlette, would either be neon/bright lights/bright colors Vegas/casino themed or vintage/high-end/luxury Vegas/casino themed. This product is a 6 pack of beer cans but the roulette aspect of the product is that one of the beers is a disgusting flavor while the rest are good. Somehow I wanted to include an actual spinner wheel on the package so the person could spin and see which can they should take a sip of first. The third idea is a cat high kit (advertised to the cats), but it's just one of those mini little finger hands. The cat can place the hand on their paw, and then they'll be able to give proper high fives to their humans. I wanted this packaging to be very 50s or 60s retro style and be more hard-sell. I also have a mini finger hand that fits on top of the regular finger hand, so I wanted this product to have a "bonus hand! For hamsters!" as an addition.
Thumbnails
I was really liking the overall direction of these concepts, although the sketches were super messy. There are so many "baby's first" or "my first" joke products out there, but I already had an 'orb' item perfect for that concept, and I thought that making it look real and very "as seen on TV" mixed with the Fischer-Price style of toys would be hilarious and relatively easy to execute. But then I fell in love with the midcentury modern/atomic 50's vibe of the cat high-five helper. Ultimately, the Brewlette concept was the one that I felt I could make the most 'real' and I've always wanted to create a beer design anyway, so I was leaning toward that!
It was my understanding that we didn't need to make fully fleshed-out complete printed dieline for each of these concepts, so long as we created a 3D drawing of all sides of the product! I could just be making that up as coping mechanism, but either way, I truly didn't have enough time to conceptualize and develop a good dieline for three separate packages. So at this stage, I just tested out a dieline creation for my most promising concept, Brewlette. I really wanted a handle on the box, but I couldn't figure it out at all, so I just started with a standard 6-pack box. I did forget to add thumbholes to this, flipped the Brewlette logo the wrong way on the lid, and had some construction issues with the bottom of this box, but overall I liked the vibe (even if I did just cut, distort, and skew my sketches to fit my messy initial dieline concept before printing).
It was my understanding that we didn't need to make fully fleshed-out complete printed dieline for each of these concepts, so long as we created a 3D drawing of all sides of the product! I could just be making that up as coping mechanism, but either way, I truly didn't have enough time to conceptualize and develop a good dieline for three separate packages. So at this stage, I just tested out a dieline creation for my most promising concept, Brewlette. I really wanted a handle on the box, but I couldn't figure it out at all, so I just started with a standard 6-pack box. I did forget to add thumbholes to this, flipped the Brewlette logo the wrong way on the lid, and had some construction issues with the bottom of this box, but overall I liked the vibe (even if I did just cut, distort, and skew my sketches to fit my messy initial dieline concept before printing).
Intermediates
For my intermediates, I went forward with Brewlette and The Complete Cat High Five Helper. I did really love the pondering orb idea, but I realized that creating that style of novelty/gag gift packaging is very easy and also really common, and I wanted to push myself to try out a different style with the retro-inspired cat high five helper. I was pretty set on doing the Brewlette concept for my final, which is why I spent so much time figuring out a dieline for that idea in particular, but I was falling in love with my more refined sketches for the miniature cat high five helper hand. Still, I thought the Brewlette seemed like the most realistic kitsch product that was actually usable in real life. I made some changes to the dieline at this stage and tested out how a cutout window would look on the side of the box instead of the front. I didn't love it. I liked the idea of the physical spinner wheel being on the side rather than the back anyway. I was still determined to figure out a way to make a handle work, and I liked the idea of having dividers for each can within the 6-pack, but didn't know how to do that without including an insert.
Final Hand
Black + White Computer Progressions
Before moving on to the computer, I knew I wanted to figure out a better dieline for Brewlette. It took so much searching, but I finally found two dielines that I could use as a starting point. One was a 6-pack box with a handle and dividers, and one was an open 6-pack carrier. I decided to print them both to see how I could use them for my concept. The open carrier was cool, but it didn't leave a lot of actual package space to add a design to, especially the roulette spinner wheel. The 6-pack box with the handles was nearly perfect, but the dimensions were so far off from what I would need. I decided to just go with the closed box with the handles and dividers, but I had to manipulate each side so it would fit the cans I was using, and I added my cutout window to the front! I was so stumped at the beginning of this project on how to make beer can dividers and a handle work without using an additional insert piece, so I'm shocked that I found an existing dieline that showed me how it was possible.
But everything ended up going to shit after this point anyway! I did finalize the measurements for my final dieline so that I could incorporate a handle and dividers, which was great, but then after my first black and white output, I accidentally deleted my entire project file (and emptied my computer's trash before I realized). I had made changes since I printed this first output, so all of those were lost. So, my first output looked terrible, quite frankly. And maybe this was a blessing in disguise because I absolutely hated my design anyway. The entire luxurious, art deco, high-end Las Vegas vintage vibe I envisioned was just not working at all. None of my typography or graphic elements seemed intentional or fitting. So I scrapped everything. I decided to keep all my copy, but switch gears and go with the 1950's midcentury modern/atomic 50's/retro design style from my cat high five helper concept.
Color Studies
Initially, I had wanted to try a simple 2 or 3 color job and just use overprints and tints, so my color studies at first were pretty minimal. I liked the idea of this having a mid-century modern look but with really rich, deep vintage colors. I thought this would be nice because of the casino/Vegas vibe, but all the colors honestly looked awful. I did use the Illustrator 'edit colors' feature to do this, so not every color was placed exactly where I would've wanted it, but this still gave me enough of a feel to realize these combos weren't working. The green, blue, and red color output looked nice but it also didn't look retro 50's and instead just gave vintage Christmas vibes. So, I rearranged and printed out 9 of my potential color palettes, all with much brighter, fun atomic 50s/mid-century modern appeal. The bright colors with the blues, peaches, and lime greens looked more appropriate for the project!
Final Flat Digital
Final Assembled
I'm so happy with how this project turned out, although I did accidentally rip the cutout window! Next time, I will add a transparent paper for stability.