Design Interview: Kevin Marshall
Marc Rosen . Avon
Kevin MarshallDesigner Kevin Marshall joined Avon in December of 2000, bringing with him an understanding not only of design, but also of the business of design. Marshall is, as his decade of experience attests, acutely aware of these two forces in the industry. Arguably, one of his greatest successes to date has been in uniting them.
Before taking on the role of packaging design director–global product development for Avon, Marshall honed his design expertise as a senior design associate at Marc Rosen Associates (MRA; New York City).
"At MRA, most of our clients—such firms as Halston, Marcella Borghese, Sanofi Beaute, and Nina Ricci—were concerned primarily with the image and look of the packaging we were designing," Marshall says. "Cost was an issue we considered, but it was never a driving factor." Because cost was not prohibitive, Marshall was able to focus more on creative concerns than on financial ones.
But he came to wear a business hat as well when, in 1995, Marc Rosen launched Prêt-à-Porter Custom Standards (New York City), a firm specializing in the creation of custom-looking modular stock packaging. For Marshall, working at Prêt-à-Porter was an opportunity to learn the business of the business.
"Prêt-à-Porter is where I [learned firsthand] about cost-reduced packaging design and the surrounding business issues. Tooling dollars, lead times, supply-chain management, and the need to engineer packages from the ground up were all part of that learning curve," he says.
These Avon designs—not Marshall's—launched in 2000 and 2001. Marshall's first designs for Avon are expected to debut in 2002. . These experiences prepared Marshall for his role at Avon, where he strives to harmonize two related but different worlds—design and the design business.
The challenge, he says, is creating the best possible package at the lowest possible price and getting it into consumers' hands on a global level. "This is the Mt. Everest of creative challenges," he says. "How do you create something beautiful and meaningful at a reasonable cost? As a designer, you have to be clever and delicate to do this successfully."
So Marshall and the Global Development Center design team at Avon focus on what he calls the beauty of economy. "An absolutely outrageous package, as creative as it may be, is meaningless unless we can afford to produce it and market it to the Avon customer," says Marshall. "And just because a package is affordable to produce doesn't mean that it can't be creative."
Marshall relies on teamwork to achieve the right balance between the artistry and the business of design. "You simply cannot maximize the potential of cost-reduced packaging if designers and engineers don't collaborate," he says. "Every time a designer makes an aesthetic decision it has engineering and production implications, and vice versa." Collaboration, he says, leads to positive results in the shortest time frame.
His vision for the Avon look takes into account new and emerging design trends. "Avon should always be pursuing innovation—clever, consumer-friendly designs," he says. "As designers, we must always seek new ways to put a better-designed package in consumers' hands."
Marshall is currently creating several designs, which Avon expects to launch in early 2002.