Package Design - March 2013 - 10

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By linda casey

Welding her Superpowers
Up-and-coming designer uses her branding skills for good.

W

ith great power comes great responsibility.
That’s the guiding philosophy of up-andcoming designer Liz Cook, a recent graduate of the
Chicago Portfolio School.
Cook says that the school helped her land a creative position with a start-up that shares her philosophy of using design for social change. But this
help didn’t come from a formal program, such as a
school internship or class assignment.

conveyed Noble Toys’ multi-mission business
objectives and extended the idea that the product
is a gift from an adult to a child.
There’s no window to view products. “It wasn’t
necessary,” says Cook, “because the product could
be placed next to the package at the high-end toy
stores or pop-up markets.”
Instead, an unadorned kraft paperboard carton
provides a level of sophistication that distinguishes
the puzzle from the brightly packaged toys that
dominate the category. Understanding that printing
on kraft paper could be challenging, the creative
team opted to save all printed elements for the bellyband and on the flysheet. The bellyband, which
is made from traditional white paperboard, is
printed with only one color—a red that would
become the brand color.
The primary graphic on the bellyband is the
Noble Toys’ logo, which was designed prior to Cook
joining the company. Originally, the creative team
considered complementary typefaces for the product name. “But we decided not to do that because
using Century, which is the same typeface used for
the logo, was a much cleaner look,” she recalls.

Packaging social change
“I think that one of the indirect results of
attending the portfolio school was getting the
opportunity to work with Noble,” she opines.
“There wasn’t a formal introduction, but I know
Chris [Chris Huizenga is the founder of Noble Toy
Company] had connections to the school.
“One of the benefits of attending a portfolio
school above the training in process, strategy and
thinking, is building those connections with working professionals,” she adds.

Made for children, Marketed to adults
Cook credits a general respect for her skills and her
philosophy to her earning a position at Noble Toys,
where she designed and illustrated an heirloomquality, wooden puzzle and helped develop experiential packaging for the toy.
Cook and Huizenga developed a multipart
package that reflected the company’s commitment
to making toys out of sustainable materials, quickly
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MARCH 2013

After the consumer slides off the bellyband, he or
she lifts open the lid of the plain kraft carton to
reveal a flysheet. At the top of this flysheet are four
icons, which convey Noble Toys’ four top missions:
support the American worker, care for the environment, aid arts programs in underprivileged schools
and make products that can be passed from generation to generation. The icons are paired with a
short paragraph that explains the company’s guiding principle.
This sophisticated yet unpretentious packaging
aims to create a desire to do good, and this is exactly
how Cook sees her role in the consumer packaged
goods industry. “I’m a huge believer that designers
have a responsibility because of the impact of visual
culture,” she says. “We have an influence on what
people think and feel, and we need to be as
thoughtful and intentional as possible.” PD
Package Design - March 2013

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