Latest Launches
A Brilliant Design
Frederick Bouchardy, founder of the Joya candle brand, launched a new line of luxury candles called Plume at Neiman Marcus this past holiday. Bouchardy and his design team, industrial designer Susan Scior and graphic designer Julia Kots, paid close attention to the design of the outer packaging. The result is a unique custom carton that took a year to design.
The carton features tuck-style flaps. Instead of being located on the carton’s top and bottom, the flaps are on the carton’s sides, enabling customers to open the carton from either side. Housed within the carton is an open-ended box Bouchardy refers to as an E-flute. This E-flute houses the candle’s frosted glass container and can be slid out of the carton.
Bouchardy says that he chose the E-flute for both practical and aesthetic reasons. First, the E-flute’s thick cardboard protects the glass container. Secondly, it makes for an unusual presentation. “We really wanted to make it a full experience when the customer opens this carton,” he says. “When you open the carton, you see that the beautiful candle is tucked away into something really safe. You realize that someone has gone to lengths to ensure that the candle you purchased is safe.”
The contours of the carton and the E-flute were inspired by the candle’s hourglass-shaped container. “We loved the shape of the glass,” says Bouchardy. “It has a very sensual but subtle curve to it. The carton was meant to reflect that.” The edges on the front of the carton are concave. The E-flute’s open wall was cut out with concave edges.
Customers might also notice other thoughtful details that enhance the experience of opening the carton. For instance, when customers slide the E-flute out, they might see a description about the candle that is printed on one of the E-flute’s walls. However, they would only notice this description if they slid the E-flute out from a certain side of the carton. “If you open the carton from the other side, you might never know about the description,” says Bouchardy. “We kind of like that about it. If customers don’t ever see the description, then it just wasn’t meant to be.”
Bouchardy also paid close attention to color-matching the packaging. He assigned a signature color to each of the candles’ 10 scents. The graphics, the E-flute, and the inside of the cartons were all colormatched. “When customers open the carton, they get a huge burst of color both from the E-flute and the inside of the outer carton,” says Bouchardy.
The carton was produced by Ares Printing & Packaging. The outer carton was made from 24-pt solid-bleached-sulfate board. “Frederick’s vision of a unique folding carton challenged Ares’s design staff to use their creative skills to satisfy his uncompromising standards,” says George Filippidis, vice president of Ares Printing & Packaging.
A Refreshing Look
One of Bourjois’s most popular gift set packages has been a paperboard base with a slide-on plastic lid. Bourjois previously used this package for its Accessor-Eyes, Kiss du jour, and Miss Behavin’ gift sets (covered in CPC Packaging’s May/June 2005 issue). In addition to cosmetics, the kits sometimes include bonus items such as a tank top or a pair of fishnet stockings. In November 2005, Bourjois retailed the same style of package for its limited-edition Cocktail gift sets.
The Cocktail gift sets were developed by design firm Dragon Rouge. There are four different kits, each containing an eye shadow, a mascara, and a lip gloss. The slide-on lids were updated for the new kits. “The illustrations are playful to make the cocktail sets flirtatious and fun,” says Maiken Erstad, design director for Dragon Rouge. “They play with light and dimension.”
Erstad says that Dragon Rouge wanted to give the kits a cosmopolitan feel. It toyed with but decided against the idea of using illustrations of different cartoon girls. “The idea with the Cocktail set was to capture different personalities that girls have,” says Erstad. “In the past, Bourjois had used illustrated girls as part of their brand image but had decided to get rid of that, partly because it gave the brand too young of an image and partly because one of its main competitors already had a history of using illustrated characters. We wanted to find a cute and fun way to capture this concept of four different girls’ personalities, without having to necessarily show that person or girl. Because sometimes, seeing a character on a package can be somewhat alienating for a customer if her or she doesn’t quite connect with that character.”
Instead, Dragon Rouge decided to use cocktail drinks as the illustration. It chose four drinks to illustrate, such as Fabulous Flirtini, Bella Bellini, and Mojito Mischief.
The packaging was supplied by Baruch, a Chinese supplier. It consists of a vacuum-formed insert placed inside a thick paperboard base and an acetate outer sleeve.
Increasing Stock’s Value
Packaging distributor Brad-Pak Enterprises dressed up its stock bottles for a fragrance line by Bare Escentuals. The bottles were frosted, decorated with black graphics, and topped with a stock metal cap.
Gloria Schlesinger of Brad-Pak says that one of the biggest challenges was accomplishing the printing registration for some of the decoration. In the end, however, she says that the stock packaging resulted in a high-end look. “When you combine [the stock items] with the clever decorations supplied by the customer, you have a fun package,” she says.