Disco Era Toy Meal
Brief:
- The project's goal was to redesign the Happy Meal and come up with an experience that interested a specific target audience. We had to design a meal container, a chicken nugget box, a cup sleeve, and toy packaging. The challenge was to design everything in a cohesive manner that tied in the original McDonald's branding and your theme. I decided to make a 70's themed meal that featured popular children's toys of the decade. The goal was to make people who grew up in the 70's nostalgic for their childhood and lure them in to purchase the meal. I also wanted this meal to be attractive to children so I used lots of bright colors and fun graphics to encourage kids to be more interested in seeing and learning more about the toys.
Challenge:
- The challenge of this project was to redesign the Happy Meal in a fun and creative way that was unlike something I'd seen before. I would say the most challenging aspects of this project were creating the templates for the boxes and making everything as cohesive as posible. Everything in this meal has a 70's feel and features different toy's that were popular throughout the decade. My main container features Stretch Armstrong, my nugget box shows the Rock'em Sock'em Robots, and my cup sleeve has the Weebles.
Role:
- Researcher, Visual Designer, Prototyper, Print Graphic Designer
Applications:
- Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Fresco
Client:
- Class Project
Main Container
For the main container I wanted to incorporate a lot of that 70's feel so I hand-drew a bunch of different graphics that I thought captured the vibe of the 70's. It also features Stretch Armstrong stretched across the box to showcase the unique toy. The information included on the box is a fun fact about what is really inside Stretch Armstrong that makes his so stretchy.
Nugget Box
For the nugget box I created a Rock'em Sock'em Robots battlefield. The top of the box shows the robots in action and the number of nuggets in the box (4). All around the sides you can see the boxing ropes and when you open the box up the sides on the inside show the game controllers and are positioned how they would be in the game. On the bottom of the box I have a fun fact about the origins of Rock'em Sock'em Robots.
French Fry Container
The french fry container helps serve as a break from the toy theme and showcases more McDonald's branding and 70's graphics. It also helps to tie the rest of the containers back to the main box by sharing the same McDonald's logo pattern.
Cup Sleeve
The cup sleeve features the Weebles which was a popular toy in the 70's that were egg shaped and had weights in the bottom so when you tried to push them they would wobble. I wanted the cup to look clean and simple so I stuck to the main colors and limited the information on the cup. The cup also features their popular slogan "Weebles wobble but they don't fall down."
Toy Box
In theory you would be able to get all the toys featured on the different boxes, but for the sake of this project I decided to design the Weebles box. I wanted the box to be clean and simple but also feel like a 70's toy box. I used simple colors with the main piece being the Weeble on the front. It also features a different popularized Weebles saying "Hey hey Weebles."
Research Methodology
I began research by looking into big events that happened in the 70's and how that shaped the attitude and atmosphere of the decade. I then began doing research on different 70's toys and why they were popular. I collected many images of original 70's art, patterns, toys, and graphics.
Idea Sketches
After researching I began to come up with the rough idea of what I wanted the main container to look like and where I wanted the contents to go. Sketching out the layout of the box and figuring out what each side needed to contain was my main focus of the inicial sketch. In the second sketch I brought it onto my ipad and began picking colors and sketching out some graphics.
Prototyping and Construction
Construction was a very important aspect of this project. To ensure that printing went smoothly I test printed all the templates to make sure that they all worked and were the right size. When it came to printing and constructing the boxes I was carful to use an exacto knife and ruler to make all edges smooth. I then folded and glued all the tabs together.
Reflection
Overall, I think this project went well and I was happy with the outcome of my designs. I had a few problems when printing that I didn't predict which effected my final product. One thing that happened was that the text got flipped on the front of my nugget box and I didn't have time to reprint before the due date. I was happy with the quality of all the graphics and the placement of items in the composition. Given more time I think there would've been more things I could've perfected such as more graphics, more integrated text, and a reprint.
