GAGA TEA! Now I've seen everything!

This whimsical design won 3rd place in the 2012 Dieline awards in the student category. I'm not really a Lady Gaga fan, but these tea bags that represent her different looks over time really gave me a chuckle. I think it's a very creative idea, especially since Lady Gaga apparently drinks a lot of tea.

Check it:

I love the illustration work, the clever names for each flavor, and the display box. The humor is refreshing! Nathalie Hallman, the student who designed this award-winning piece, is a very talented designer. It's great to see that there is a student category in the Dieline awards!

Hey! Got a great packaging design? Submit it! Go here.

Source: The Dieline Awards Website

KEE WAH??? YUM!

A funny coincidence. I had come across this packaging design for Kee Wah Mooncakes recently, and within a couple of days someone handed me a mooncake to try. Pretty yummy! They weren't Kee Wah mooncakes, but pretty tasty nonetheless. So, I went back to The Dieline website where I had seen these packaging designs, and, well, here they are.

I didn't know anything about mooncakes before except they are a chinese sweet of some kind.

• "Mooncake is a Chinese bakery product traditionally eaten during the Mid-Autumn Festival. The festival is for lunar worship and moon watching, when mooncakes are regarded as an indispensable delicacy. Mooncakes are offered between friends or on family gatherings while celebrating the festival. The Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the four most important Chinese festivals." (wiki)

I love the concept! I love autumn, moon watching, festivals, and sweets. What's not to like about a mooncake then?

As for the packaging, I absolutely  LOVE the clean, minimal, simple, elegant, and sweet design! (The rabbit is so sweet to me.) The simple line drawing of a rabbit bounding over a hill (snowy or otherwise) with the moon shining brightly in the upper right creates a smooth, magical feeling, which I think is what mooncakes are supposed to be, in a way. Also, the typography is beautiful. I really like how each flavor is in a different colored box, but the design on the boxes are the same except for that. The color schemes are lovely and appetizing, by the way.

Read below the pictures for more information about mooncakes and especially some of the design choices for this repackaging project.

Source: http://www.thedieline.com/blog/2014/8/24/the-custard-mooncake

OREOS—MORE THAN JUST A COOKIE

Oreos have been around forEVER. They were my favorite cookie to dunk in milk when I was a kid (well, second to homemade Tollhouse chocolate chip cookies...), and of course there was always the taking apart of the cookie to eat the "icing" first, or whatever. Point is that they really haven't changed, and are, I would imagine, still a favorite of many children as well as some grown up children.

Bright color is something that always catches my eye. This poster series for Oreos definitely did. I saw the instantly recognizable Oreo cookie right away, and I was intrigued to see what else was happening in the posters. Each one has a hand of some kind reaching toward the Oreo which is apparently being held out to take by another kind of hand. They are playful, simple, colorful, and have a positive message, which is that Oreos can bring together even the most unlikely pairs.

I love the illustration style, the colors, the typography, the layout; everything works. It's making something old new again. It's a really creative idea, and the execution is beautifully done. Very appealing to kids and adults alike.

 "The Wonderfilled campaign was created to show people that Oreo is more than just cookies and creme—it's an icon of childlike wonder that can help change people's perspectives for the better. To take the Wonderfilled idea to people at street level, storefronts in Richmond featured posters that showed iconic adversaries—a pirate and an admiral, King Kong and a damsel—coming together over a shared Oreo cookie." (P. 102)

Source: Communication Arts Design Annual 55, September/October 2014, pages 102-103. 

Partial Credits:

Angie Elko/Whitney McCall, designers

Martin Allais, Illustrator

Ben Ely, studio artist

The Martin Agency (Richmond, VA), ad agency

Mondelez International, client

RAISING THE ROOF: Helping the Homeless in Creative Ways

This caught my eye immediately. It jumped off the page.

I actually had an interesting and unique experience with a homeless man a couple of years ago that really moved me and led to the writing of my first short story. That man looked very much like the silkscreened man on the box in the first image.

These are donation boxes designed for Raising the Roof, a homeless awareness organization. What I really like about this design idea and execution of the concept is the raw realness of it. If you read the quoted paragraph at the bottom, you'll note that these are photos of real homeless people. They are life-sized images placed on boxes that are placed where homeless people are actually found. Homeless people often sleep in boxes. The idea is to solicit donations by confronting people with realistic images of the people they are helping with their donation. I'd be far more likely to donate to one of these boxes than I would to a faceless box with only words to convey the reality of the situation.

A side note: I'm reminded of an article I read recently in The Week magazine about a hairstylist who donates his Sundays (I think it's either in NY or LA) to giving haircuts to the homeless. The people are so grateful; one said to him afterwards, "Know anyone who's hiring?" or something. Anyway, I loved hearing that. Homelessness is a huge problem in the US, and I actually know people who are or have been homeless, and it's a crazy cycle that is incredibly hard to escape. It's just good to see creative ways, such as these boxes, that organizations are trying to raise money to do all of the things that need to be done to help homeless people escape living on the streets.

I also find the simple statement, "To help the homeless escape living here, donate here," to be very well-written. It's to the point and seems perfect for the cause. I just hope Raising the Roof is able to raise a lot of money with these. I wonder how many of them there are and in what cities they are located. This touched me quite a bit, I have to say.

Source and Credits:

Public Service Series

Anthony Chelvanathan, art director

Lisa Greenberg/Judy John, creative directors

Anthony Chelvanathan/Steve Persico, group creative directors

Judy John, chief creative officer

Steve Persico, writer

Jesse Senko, photographer

Sabrina DeLuca/Laurie Filgiano, art buyers

Anne Peck, producer

Leo Burnett, Toronto (Toronto, Canada), ad agency

Raising the Roof, client

"Raising the Roof is a homeless awareness organization that
wanted us to design their donation box. But we needed to
change people's lack of concern for the homeless before we
could get them to donate or act. Our solution was to design
human-sized donation boxes with silkscreened images of
real homeless people and place them in spots where the
homeless people usually are."

Communication Arts Design Annual 55, September/October 2014, page 146