Moleculabs is a slime-mixing activity that will teach young girls basic chemistry, proper lab safety, and math (proportions); enriching and encouraging young kids’ interest in STEM subjects! Working within a group of 4 designers including myself, Louis Drum, Alena Arthur, and Aidan Horvath, we created a sustainably packaged and educational slime kit perfect for a young child to play with and learn from.
To keep our package sustainable, we utilized SBS paperboard, tin, glass, and soy based inks.
I contributed to the store audits, packaging structure and packaging design.
Store Audits
Tasked with making a sustainably packaged slime kit, my group set off to many stores including Target, Michaels, and Walmart to see what is currently in the market. We found that there was a lot of big bold colors, almost everything was packaged in plastic, and there was a mix of educational and fun slides. For the most part, all of these slimes were in the toy section and marketed towards kids.
Branding
The logo for Moleculabs utilizes an Art Nouveau inspired typeface with modifications like curved edges to give a softer look to the brand and and ligature between the "u" and the "l" to create a swooping test tube shape within the figure/ground relationship.
Designed by Alena Arthur
Illustration
Within the packaging, each variation has a character associated with it. They are interacting with the slime that is packaged inside. from left to right they are butter slime, glitter slime, and crunchy slime.
Illustrated by Louis Drum
Packaging Structure
When creating the packaging structure I wanted it to pop off the shelf with an interesting shape. That spoke to the brand and gave the customer an idea of what they would experience with this product. Because of this, I decided to package the slime kit in a shape resembling an erlenmeyer flask.
Packaging Design
For the packaging design, I wanted something that would appeal to our target audience of kids while relating to slime and science. The top of the package features an oozing slime that gives form characteristics of the final product, while the front panel features a child scientist who is experimenting like the potential customer will. The other panels feature text about the brand, benefits of slime, what's included, and safely warnings. Thought all main panels, there is a transparent pattern in the background to create depth within the design.
Final Renders
Using my final designs and dyelines Louis created some renders of our final product, insert, and how the products would look together. This showed the cohesive brand system we created throughout.
