I was hired to design a 100,000 piece promotional campaign targeting businesses throughout the US and Europe. The packaging system included a complex set of cd’s, quick start cards and viral cards for Microsoft Visio, FrontPage and Project.

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The given theme for the project was “Right tool for the job” and I presented a series of solutions relating to tools, including an oversized Swiss Army Knife and tool boxes made out of metal and card stock. Although they instantly fell hard for the Swiss Amy Knife concept, it was so far ‘outside the box’ [literally] that they decided they needed a box that easily fit on a shelf or desk. With that in mind, I fine tuned an inspired solution: a Dewalt influenced card stock box [above] that leveraged Microsoft’s yellow and black brand colors.

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To reinforce the tool concept our designs mimmiced what you would find in a hardware store or your dad’s tool shed. Inspired by screw drivers, hand tools, tool boxes, circular blades and power tools I designed intricate die-cut shapes for every tool in the box and used embossing and thermography to simulate rubber hand tool grip textures.

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MICROSOFT_Visio_1000pxlsMICROSOFT_FrontPage_1000pxlsMICROSOFT_Project_1000pxls   MICROSOFT_QuickstartBox1000pxlsMICROSOFT_Cards-share_1000pxls  MICROSOFT_Card-Visio_1000pxls

Although this tactile box set is best held and touched [I’d love to show it to you], the pictures still tell a good part of the story.