Drink packaging in the form of collectible paper toys. What started as an exercise in new product development turned into a community design project.
To develop a unique beverage product to be sold at the campus. This included: identifying a target market, catering the product to them, and selling the product.
Knowing that Interactive Arts students represented a majority of the student body on campus*, I targeted the whole project towards them and included them in the process.
1) Project Manager — Lead the surveys and focus groups; developed the concepts; acted as liaison between the team and the instructor.
2) Communication Designer — Designed the branding, character templates, and presentations.
1) Campus-wide surveys
2) Focus group with target market
3) Concept development
4) Prototype testing
5) Product implementation
6) Marketing implementation
7) Product launch
12 unique PaperJoe packages were submitted by designers from the Interactive Arts program, 60 were produced (5 of each), and all 60 sold out within an hour.
Photos by Vincent Wong and Dominic Wong
Survey Results — Results from a survey in which we asked questions regarding school, lifestyles, and food and drink preferences, giving us a general idea of the SFU Surrey campus’ student body. 43 participants in total.
Concept Development — Realizing that our competition would likely focus on their drinks, we went the other way- we decided to focus on our branding, appealing to the entertainment needs of our audience while creating a strong, uniquely identifiable product.
The "Paper Joe" — Rough concept of our idea, which combines a paper toy with an energy-boosting coffee.
Prototypes — Quick prototypes, trying to figure out how to put a drink inside a paper container.
Prototype Testing — To gain feedback, we conducted tests with our packaging and drink.
Template — Final packaging template was sent out to student designers. "SIAT Stan," pictured above, by Joel Rich.
Submissions — Handful of designs from Joel Rich, Andrew Thong, Kiks Chua, Natalie Parolin, Brad Slavin, and myself. Other entries, not shown here, from Ross Papa, Josef Liu, and Yoshi Shinto.
Manufacturing — After receiving the designs, we had them printed on card stock (thanks to Sammy Jayetileke) and spent all night cutting and taping. Thanks to Kiks Chua and Andrew Thong for helping me put these together!
Animated Signage — The animation we had playing behind our counter, showing our prices. (Animation by Vincent Wong)
Marketing — A few weeks before the event, we sent out a press release to SFU Surrey, which featured us on their homepage.
