Contents
  • Overview
  • Understand
  • Define
  • Ideate
  • Reflect

    • MoodyKit

    MoodyKit was a 2019 Senior Capstone-turned-passion project for a quarterly subscription stationery box with playful themes representing the seasons.

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    .01 Overview

    Duration

    February 2019 — May 2019

    Role

    Visual Design, Print Production, Content

    Tools

    Adobe Illustrator, Adobe XD, Adobe Draw

    Synopsis

    With the growing popularity of subscription boxes, I wanted to create a product line that was consumable within a period of time, had a consistent aesthetic, and was consistent with its selection of items.

    .02 Understand

    Brand and product research was based on popular subscription formats such as Lootcrate, Memebox, and BarkBox, utilizing ideas from their variety of products and "themed" schedules. Taking inspiration from the popular "Sanrio Surprise" goody bags, which usually included things like stationery, stickers, candies, and the occasional "thing that smelled good", Moodykit would follow a similar format, except appeal to a young adult audience that enjoys consumable nicknacks and nostalgic value.

    .03 Define

    Since this was a student project, I was limited on time, resources, and budget, so I needed to come up with an ethical set of products that complimented each other which were possible to make. I decided that stationery would be reasonable through print production resources at my university and that I could reskin certain things like plain pencils or unlabeled bottles while coming up with solutions to fill them to demonstrate my designs.

    What Can I Produce?

    Brainstorming on what I wanted to create and how I envisioned the brand. The name and themes weren't final, but I knew I wanted it to represent 4 seasons and play around with the subjects of seasonal mood changes.

    Moodykit Phase 1
    .04 Ideate

    Next, was coming up with the brand identity and designs for the print packaging themselves. Limiting the subscription to a quarterly, seasonal format made it easier to concentrate on a set of themes, basically being 4 mini-identities under a parent brand.

    Branding Brainstorming

    I knew I wanted a "melty" glaze look for each box to represent the ups and downs of the year and color palettes to match. "Moodibox" eventually turned into "Moodykit" as an ode to the first-aid kit, and was the "metaphorical treatment to seasonal mood owies".

    Moodykit Phase 2

    Moody Mascots

    Spring: Ayy Fever

    Ayy Fever

    Summer: Doggy Days

    Dog Days

    Fall: Spooky Szn

    Spooky Szn

    Winter: Star Party

    Star Party
    .05 Iterate

    Since this was initially a product design project, I was split between large format printing for the boxes using a dieline from a box vendor, and create my own dielines for reskinning stationery, notebooks, candy bottle labeling, and facemasks.

    Final Production

    All files were organized by "product type" with smaller files (for pencils and candy labels) compiled into files with respective dielines. Boxes and box lining were prepared for large format printing by series and took a whopping 2 hours to print each file. For this project, I did not have the resources to diecut the boxes (so sad and very frustrating) so I hand cut and glued the both faces of the prints together, which you can imagine, was not perfect every time so I had to print again!

    Ayy Fever
    Dog Days

    Dog Days
    Dog Days

    With all prints prepared, I wrapped candy labels and stationery pens carefully with vinyl to represent the final product. The candy "pill bottles" had a color assortment of "tart"-style candies to represent each theme. These consisted of stars, hearts, dogbones, and stars, supplemented a color assortment of konpeito––a style of candy from japan that consist of colorful sugar clusters. I collected an assortment of konpeito with colors to match each theme.

    And Then I Made a Mock Website..

    After the physical project was finished, I decided to mock up a landing page to complete the brand even further. Using inspiration from some brands in my previous research like Barkbox and Memebox, there were key qualities I noticed in terms of showcasing themes, targeted language, and minimizing information. I applied these aspects to the landing page and decided to make a separate page to showcase the seasonal themes of Moodykit.

    Homepage

    Homepage mockup showcasing promotional CTAs, simplified rundown, and themes.

    Moodykit Homepage

    Product Page

    Landing page mockup showcasing promotional CTAs, simplified rundown, and themes.

    Moodykit Theme Page
    .06 Reflect

    I had so much fun designing this project and garnered a lot of curiousity about the products as I was creating them. Creating the deliverables was definitely difficult on my own without things like lasercutting or having the best materials. A lot of money and time went down the drain with printing errors, but overall I was happy with the results and impact it made on other people. I decided to print a ton of stickers and give them away as goodbye gifts for my graduating class.

    Lessons Learned

    • If a dieline exists, use it!
    • Doing production manually is not realistic
    • Production design is timely and expensive

    What I Would Do Differently

    • Use automated technologies like cutting machines
    • Do test prints–the Star Party swatches weren't optimal
    • Make a mock website!