Package Re-creation/Innovation

Innovation in packaging creates consumer demand.

This was a school project where we had to pick an existing product with a poor packaging and entirely redesign it. The idea was to redesign the product or create a package for the product (if it didn't already have one), and make it look better and have a higher perceived value than it had before.

With so many options out there, it seemed impossible at first to choose a product. I ended up picking a game of chess, as I love working with clean lines and geometric shapes, so I though I could do something fun.

Original Packaging

I started by looking at the packaging and thought of numerous ideas for the packaging, but in the end, no matter how "pretty" the packaging looked like, the consumer would not have purchased the product (really cheap plastic chess pieces). So I started to think how I could incorporate the packaging into the game, and I came across a few concepts of 3D chess boards.

by Jason

by Ji Lee

by http://iunewind.com

My idea was to make the chessboard the actual packaging of the chess pieces. I wanted to build it as a 3D chess board as a new product itself so the consumers would buy the product for the chessboard, and could use their own custom chess pieces, if desired. The chess pieces would come inside the chessboard, along with the flat board provided in the original packaging.

In order to build the 3D chess board, I started looking at the Soma Cube, how it works and the variety of figures you can build.

*The Soma cube is a solid dissection puzzle invented by Piet Hein in 1933 during a lecture on quantum mechanics conducted by Werner Heisenberg. Seven pieces made out of unit cubes must be assembled into a 3x3x3 cube. The pieces can also be used to make a variety of other 3D shapes. (source)

Below you can see the packaging I created. Each square that forms the chessboard is an individual box (not for storage), while the bottom part is the box for storage (chess pieces, instructions and the folded board), which is made with an acetate window on each side of the board for visibility of the product. I added a few details by debossing the logo and a few lines across the board, and I added an acetate box for protection and shipping.