MK Lighter Rebrand - A collaboration between Amy Yung, Yang Zhou, and Carissa Salazar.
My notable contributions include: competition research, color selection, typography selection, team-wide selected blister card design, and other collaborative efforts creating the style guide, packaging, product catalog, and more.
Style guide and product catalog samples available upon request.
One of the biggest projects our team was tasked to do was overhaul the old look of the MK Lighter brand and create a brand image that was modern and competitive in the market. The first step in the process was establishing a new brand identity with a fresh logo, new brand colors, and solidifying brand typography.
After extensive research looking into the lighter market and analyzing our competitors, we felt like our branding needed to be warmer and bolder. This was the birth of the iconic MK orange. The MK orange was selected to stand out against the typical red color used by smaller lighter brands but also to speak louder than our leading competitors who were utilizing light yellows.
In the retail space we wanted our packaging to stand out with the accent of orange, but also wanted to highlight the attractive product design by incorporating simpler backgrounds to let the lighter's colors speak for themselves. We felt that the previous packaging made the product look cheap and the background took away from the product. Working closely with the sales and marketing departments, we ensured that the packaging would also highlight the product features, in this case we wanted to push the fact that our lighters were refillable, which is one of our competitive advantages against other brands.
We redesigned packaging for more than 30+ products following our style guide, including tray displays, blister packs, inner boxes (PDQs), floor displays, and 2/3 tier trays. These products are now available at H-E-B, Daiso, Hobby Lobby, and more.
The 3BL Pastels were selected to have special packaging due to its success and attractive colors. Instead of the standard MK orange, there are 5 possible blister card colors that correspond to one of the two lighter colors it contains. The 2nd lighter is randomly selected from the 4 other possible colors. I had the responsibility of designing these blister cards and inner box.
