The retail package for a Lenovo mouse. Recognized as one of the 10-most-attractive packages at the 2007 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. This package is the first finished from a series of 16 products chosen to participate in the package pilot.The pilot consisted of two types of packages: plastic clamshells with color inserts, like the mouse package pictured here; and "pretty packs," four color wraps around the standard cardboard package.
The biggest challenge was the fact that no person on the core team had any experience with retail packaging. We were familiar with the types of packaging used for computer options, the terminology, what were the legal requirements, where we might be able to get packages made, what standards the packages should follow, what sort of tolerances for drops we should plan for, nor even what the actual products looked like at times. We tried to place as many products as possible into plastic clamshells so customers could see and experience the products in the store. We begged some money for photography, and begged some products to be photographed for the box wraps.
The project started in late May/early June. Marketing was hoping to have the packages into the stores for Sept for the back-to-school shopping season and certainly Christmas. As we moved deeper into the project it became apparent that there was no way we were going to make either Christmas or Sept. But, going flat-out all summer allowed us to get our first packages ready for Jan.
We started with the assumption that the majority of the options were going to be ThinkPad options. We started working on a visual system for the packages that strongly reflected the ThinkPad brand. The image to the left shows one of the initial drawing of proposed system. The red circle, reminiscent of the TrackPoint on the keyboard of the notebooks is a powerful graphic element, acting as a foil to the photo of the black products. The strong red and black system was getting rave reviews internally. It would really differentiate us on store shelves. No one else had a system that looked like it.
In addition to the ThinkPad peripherals, a system was needed for the Lenovo branded options. Lenovo's corporate colors are blue, silver and white with touches of orange. The image below shows some of the color studies. The top sample is closest to the final design.
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