Packaging and Print Design, With Custom Illustration - DIY Kit Design

Terracotta & Twine needed Bex Grimwood Creative to design some printed macrame instructions to go inside their DIY kits and the packaging for these DIY kits.

Hands make a macrame bookmark, surrounded by printed instructions, cord, beads and a mug

THE BRAND - MACRAME DIY KITS AND BESPOKE MACRAME PIECES

With their macrame DIY kits and bespoke macrame pieces, Terracotta & Twine is a really fun brand. They aim to help macrame beginners get started with unique, beginner friendly projects. This project was for the packaging of their DIY kits to help Terracotta & Twine launch their wholesale line.

THE GOAL - EYE-CATCHING PRODUCT PACKAGING AND CLEAR INSTRUCTIONS

As Terracotta & Twine was starting to sell these DIY kits wholesale, they needed packaging that was eye-catching on a shelf, but also let customers know what the product was, no matter how they were displayed.

Bex Grimwood Creative was also designing the instructions which would be provided inside the DIY kits, which needed to look great, and be easy to follow.

THE OVERALL PACKAGING CONCEPT - BOX SLEEVE

The packaging would be printed in-house by Terracotta & Twine, so size was an issue. Any design needed to be printable within an A3 sheet, so a box sleeve was the chosen option.

A pile of four boxes with belly bands are piled in front of a plain background. Each box contains details of a different macrame DIY kit

PACKAGING DESIGN - USING EXISTING BRANDING EFFECTIVELY

Bex Grimwood Creative had already created a full brand identity for Terracotta & Twine, so this was a great jumping off point when creating the packaging.

The repeating pattern designed for Terracotta & Twine was a great way to immediately giving context clues as to what the product is, whilst also looking fun and cheerful on a shelf.

All the fonts and colours used across the packaging can be found on the website, marketing materials and the cards inside the DIY kits, creating immediate brand recognition.

A hand holds a macrame DIY kit box over a pile of similar boxes. The box has a sleeve with pattern, photograph of bookmarks and descriptive text

DESIGNING DIY KIT PATTERN CARDS - AFFORDABLE, CLEAR, CONSISTENT

The DIY Kits created by Terracotta & Twine needed to contain printed instructions which were easy to understand and looked consistent across their full range of kits. Using the repeating pattern as a header and footer, Bex Grimwood Creative came up with a template that could be repeated across all Terracotta & Twine pattern cards.

The cards are presented with a printed band around the centre, which also contains the repeating pattern.

An open cardboard box contains printed macrame pattern cards and macrame cord. Other cards, scissors and a mug surround the box

CUSTOM ILLUSTRATION - DRAWING MACRAME KNOTS

To help customers who are more visual learners, Terracotta & Twine wanted to provide illustrations of macrame knots and certain steps throughout the patterns.

These were created as custom illustrations from Bex Grimwood Creative.

A card saying square knot at the top, contains five illustrations showing step by step how to tie the knot

Overall, I found this a super fun project to work on. The packaging and DIY kits look super high quality and at the time of writing, can be found on the shelves of The Little Craft House in Saltaire, and The Magpie in Skipton.

You can read about Terracotta & Twine's full rebrand here.

You can read about other projects Bex Grimwood Creative has worked on here.

If you have a graphic design project you'd like to discuss with Bex Grimwood Creative, you can get in touch here, or email your ideas to hello@bexgrimwoodcreative.com

PACKAGING AND PRINT DESIGN, WITH CUSTOM ILLUSTRATION - DIY KIT DESIGN - TERRACOTTA & TWINE