PACKAGING DESIGN SOLUTIONS FOR A START-UP

A Morrisette Design Center Case Study : NERD

Every day at the Morrisette Design Center we design solutions for all types of companies. We were recently tasked with designing packaging solutions for NERD, a South Carolina based startup company that sells gun accessories.

Project Background

NERD was seeking design solutions for:

2 different holster packs (one concealed carry and one outside the waistband)
A magazine pack
Point-Of-Purchase retail signage

Before Morrisette stepped in, NERD was using a poly bag with a paperboard header stapled to the bag. This was not aesthetically appealing for the brand and was not a viable solution for growth.

Project Goals

When this project first came to our Design team, we evaluated the customer’s needs and set goals for the project:

Ability to accommodate a wide range of SKU’s – we needed to design a solution that could accommodate at least a half dozen holsters and a dozen concealed carry holster packs
Create brand-consistent retail packaging
Improve the customer experience through packaging
A simple and versatile solution to meet the needs of the start-up

One feature that we wanted to help NERD achieve was to make the packaging versatile so that the customer could take the holster off the packaging and try it out before purchasing. Customers like to try before they buy in this market – they are used to having this accommodation and we wanted to make this a selling factor.

The Design Outcomes

Once we started the design process, we were able to take the NERD logo and branding and develop new artwork based on the brand guidelines.

When we started working with NERD, the company was only selling product online via ecommerce. Because of Morrisette’s experience designing retail packaging for this market, we were able to create new packaging specific to retail to make this product stand out on the shelf.

Our designers have the industry experience to design packaging best suited for a start-up company. We designed versatile and nimble packaging that could work for multiple SKU’s keeping tooling costs down.

We also designed this package for digital printing of corrugated and labels, eliminating print plate costs and giving NERD flexibility of verbiage on their packaging should they have to make changes due to regulations or product tweaks in the future.

Exterior carry holster:

Owb outside the waistband
Taller pack called sly holster
Kept the family look the same with structure and branding similar
Modular

Magazine packaging:

Clip packaging has to fit 6 different packs
Structural designer has to solve the puzzle make it fit multiple
Interchangeable packaging

Our goal was to create one growing suite of cohesive packaging that really showcased this brand. Now, Morrisette and NERD are working on branding a whole section of a store for NERD products with POP displays, including shelf tags, aisle blades, shelf danglers, and more.

From NERD

Morrisette Crew,

“Just wanted to reach out and thank each of you!! The packaging arrived yesterday and is absolutely awesome!! Couldn’t have imagined it would have turned out this good.

I actually went down and stocked my first location last night and the guys there were blown away by the entire product……largely due in part to the eye catching packaging!!

Thanks again so much for all the ideas and hard work you guys put into this project. Looking forward to the next one……” -NERD team