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The packaging design developed for the new range of powder detergents Skip Perfect Black / Perfect White – for black and white clothes – presents an unusual and premium packaging design for a product that plays in a “boring” category such as Laundry.

Credits

CASA REX

Gustavo Piqueira, Creative Director
Gustavo Piqueira and Ingrid Lafalce, Designers
Danilo Helvadjian, Leonardo Rodrigues and Lilian Meireles, Assistant Designers

JURY COMMENTS

Mark Christou: It’s great to see a pack concept in the Laundry category. I don’t feel it’s a fully cohesive package, but as a designer I celebrate a creative idea that makes it onto the shelf. Well done.

Melanie Wiesenthal: I thought the front of the packaging was an interesting take on elevating a mass category, through the use of cleaned up type, graphics and minimalism. I personally feel the front design is much stronger than the back and wonder how many cooks it took to brew that up?

Joshua Handy: Laundry is a tired low-interest category – Kudos to the designers for taking a lifestyle approach here, however we would like to see more integration strategically between the front and rear panels. It’s a move in the right direction, but the final execution still feels a little schizophrenic.

Joe Marianek: At a glance the use of color is telegraphic and therefore smart. Up close, there is a lot of laundry-tech language, messy typography, and incoherent illustration styles which take away from the confidence of the concept. I'm not certain which I'd use for gray clothes, but at a glance, I'd know which to get.

Marianne Klimchuk: Perhaps a disconnect graphically between the clean primary display panel and the back panel nonetheless there is much to appreciate about this design. Differentiation from the typical designs in the laundry category is the key asset but there is much more to appreciate about this design. The simplicity of the design elevates the brand and cleverly positions skip as a high end fashion brand.  An outstanding strategy.  Production - from the glossy shine of the flexible bag, the metallic ink, the purity of the white and the pop of color appears to be superior. The graphical devices, icons and typography communicate a technological advancement of this brand. Well done!

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1. Summarize the problem you set out to solve. What was the challenge posed to you? Did it get you excited and why?

The objective of the project was to present an unusual and premium packaging design for a product that plays in the Laundry category in Argentina. Considering Laundry is such a "boring" market that commonly brings packaging demonstrating the “aggressive” effectiveness of the product, we were very excited as we could add a different approach to the category.

2. What point of view did you bring to the challenge? Was there anything additional that you wanted to achieve with this project or bring to this project that was not part of the original brief?

We developed a packaging design that not only achieved the brief objectives – bringing a premium and unusual look – but it also shakes up the regular cues commonly used in this category. We choose to portray a “cosmetic” and premium approach for what is a traditional Laundry product. So, we used a sophisticated and clean typography with icons that reveal the technology behind the product in a calm and abstract way.

3. When designing this project, whose interests did you consider? (Discuss various stakeholders, audiences, retailing, manufacturing, assembly, distribution, etc., for example.)

Skip targets sophisticated women who like and are used to buying products of prestige brands; and the premium packaging we developed is in keeping with their lifestyle and trends within the Laundry category.

4. Describe the rigor that informed your design. (Research, ethnography, subject matter experts, materials exploration, technology, iteration, testing, etc., as applicable.) If this was a strictly research or strategy project, please provide more detail here.

In order to bring a premium aspect for the new design, we did a study analysis to understand how cosmetic products portray their premiumness. Then, we considered the main characteristics of this category and ‘boost’ the design with elegant and clean typography and icons that reveal the technology behind the product in a calm and abstract way. The effect of the final substrates and printing processes, a combination of matte printing with glossy silver texts further reinforce the product’s premium positioning. Even the back panels present the product results in a more contemporary way than in the general Laundry arena.

5. What is the social value of your design? (Gladdening, educational, economic, paradigm-shifting, sustainable, labor-mindful, environmental, cultural, etc.) How does it earn its keep in the world?

The packaging design developed for the new range of powder detergent, Skip Perfect Black / Perfect White, is paradigm-shifting as it shakes the Laundry category standards while it borrows technology codes from the cosmetic universe.

6. If you could have done one thing differently with the project, what would you have changed?

Maybe improving the silver printing using some foil.

CASA REX

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Unilever, Argentina

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The packaging design developed for the new range of powder detergents Skip Perfect Black / Perfect White – for black and white clothes – presents an unusual and premium packaging design for a product that plays in a “boring” category such as Laundry.

Skip