(above) From the beginning of the project, Mark had a very clear & genuine why -- he wanted kids to find the same joy, pride, and career opportnities that he had found as an engineer at NASA & Apple. "Like an engineer" emerged as a key part of the tagline, we liked "think" because it felt very IBM & aspirational, but Mark felt it was about more than just thinking. I came up with having the tagline big & bold on the homepage, but having the verb cycle through the other actions that felt aligned with the brand. "Hack" has since been added as a nod to a newer product line the Hack Pack. Really happy it was flexible enough to grow with the brand.
I also identified a need for and conceptualized the experience of each shipment in a 1-2-3 format. Whereas there were competitors in the build it yourself category, like LEGO whose sets are one and done, we wanted to differentiate by WHAT we built: toys! We felt the builds had to have exciting play value beyond the act of building, because it was through use that kids would begin to absorb the engineering choices of the toy. And of course since its Mark Rober, we also differentiated with an accompanying VIDEO to explain the mechanisms and physics used in an entertaining way. So, I made a 1-2-3 to show how we intended to go beyond the build.
If you're thinking about shipping a new activity or toy every month, individually, and then add up all those product and shipping costs for a whole year, the sticker shock can be real. Launch was approaching, the website was built, and I was looking at the product display page of just the first product thinking, we need a bigger hero shot. We need to show a year's worth of product for the year's worth of price tag. Problem was, we didn't have a year's worth of product to show yet. I paused my work, started collecting all the unique and nearly final samples we had around the office, scrounged up 12 boxes that at least had one accurate side, and got this shot on my phone. It's not exactly vogue worthy, but it was what we needed, and I still see it in circulation.
Packaging! Not the most design design, but the loud design was the right kind of exciting for 9 year olds. What I'm much more proud of is pushing to NOT use polypropelene packaging. Since the toy is built by the kids, all those screws & bits need to come in tidy kitting. I made a case to Mark to use *anything* else that the crunchy petrochemical baggies that were the industry standard, and after investigating alternatives and landing on facility compostable plastic bags, got the go ahead to implement across brand despite the added cost. The photo I made & blurb to celebrate it are still on the site. With anywhere from 3-6 bags per box, and over 1 million boxes shipped, I'm really quite proud of how much forever plastic this has kept out of circulation.
This is one of the products I designed for the build box line. Bold, active, and exciting, it's a crossbow style airplane launcher you can wear on your wrist. Designer Dan Tompkins tok it across the finish line & through production.
