Design Interview
The Eye of the Storm: Storm Design
Being at the center of the cosmetic scene is a frenzied place, but the designers from Storm Design, New York, love being in the thick of it. The firm, which started in 1997, launched its legacy with three major projects and has been going non-stop ever since. The first clients were none other than Coty UK and two divisions of Lancaster: Paris and New York. The partners, William Crane, president; Curt Altman, managing director; and Michael Moy, creative director, have an impressive sum of experience with many of the giants in the health and beauty industry, including Max Factor (which became Revlon), Benneton, Cosmair and a host of others.
Integrated Approach
"We are consumer products branders," says Crane. "We tend to work directly with marketing departments....We have an integrated approach."
This "integrated approach" means the partners are involved with the research, trend analysis, competitive positioning and brand development for projects. "We look at projects from a consumer's approach, which we believe aids in making the product more marketable. By doing the research, you have a better understanding of consumer and brand," he explains.
The Isabella Rossellini Manifesto line is a derivative of Isabella herself. According to Crane, Rossellini created the product concept and it was articulated through the branding and the package design/development. "Everything we did we tried to reinforce her concept. With the help of marketing at Lancaster group, which did a lot of qualitative analysis, we were able to see the results and design accordingly," he says.
The Rimmel redesign for Coty UK was another first for the firm. The challenge was to take three unique cosmetic lines in more than five different markets and bring them under one brand umbrella while internationally allowing them to remain faithful to their established brand. Coty UK had purchased the line from Unilever and wanted to unify the packaging of Invite and Chicago (marketed throughout Europe, Asia and China) and market the product as Rimmel in the US exclusively sold through Walmart.
Storm Design conceptualized the strategic marketing plan, package design and development as well as the nomenclature, secondary packaging and merchandising. Crane notes that a distinctive typeface was used and the names were not changed because the company did not want to jeopardize the success of the existing brands. "It was a neat trick to integrate packaging and concept as a whole, but keep separate names and maintain the brands," he adds.
Expert Engineers
Storm Design is often called upon from the industry leaders for their engineering expertise as well as design excellence. One reason for this is that the firm taps package designers, graphicdesigners, as well as packaging engineers and industrial designers. "We have computer software that allows us to integrate with package development or directly to the factories that make the products whether it is packaging or glass or plastic or metal," he notes. This allows the firm to integrate design so what is proposed is what it will look like at the result," says Crane.
Cosmair, Estee Lauder, and Lancome often use the firm for its package engineering expertise. "For Lanc™me, we take their designers' ideas and put them into forms we know can be manufactured," he says. For more information, contact Storm Designs at Tel: 212-979-1004.