Overview

My friend and founder of a color cosmetics venture, R2R Cosmetics, wanted to explore a custom packaging design for her R2R Velvet Paint color formulations. I supported her throughout the design process–from ideating packaging design concepts to researching and developing 2D and 3D renderings of the concept design–in partnership with a leading industrial design agency.

Disclaimer: All design sketches and 3D renderings marked "Lead Off Studio" were developed by the third-party industrial design agency, Leadoff Studio.

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About the Brand

R2R Cosmetics is a Gen Z color cosmetics brand based in New York City that develops clean, multi-purpose, and vegan products for versatile and everyday wear. The brand’s mission is to celebrate the unique cultures, histories, and experiences of every individual through artistic self-expression.

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My Contributions

I led the concept ideation, material testing, and 2D sketch development of the packaging design. My contributions consisted of the following:

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Concept Brainstorm & Sketching

‍My friend had a vision for creating a custom primary packaging design to store her multi-purpose and cream-based color cosmetic products. She wanted the main structure of the packaging to be compact, catering to travel-friendly use. She also wanted to incorporate a design element that reflected the brand’s ethos of embracing individuality and artistic self-expression.

I held a discovery and sketching session with my friend to come up with several design concepts for the product. I recommended exploring a conceptual design inspired by a makeup shadow palette, but with the adaptation to accommodate liquid formulations instead of a powder formula.

We decided on a custom ‘art palette’ design inspired by New York’s graffiti wall art. The concept involved intricately carving a graffiti design into the inner tray of the palette packaging. The liquid formula would be contained within each cavity of the graffiti silhouette. Below are a couple of initial graffiti-inspired designs I developed for the inner tray of the palette:

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2D Renderings 

We decided on three initial concept designs for the inner tray of the palette to share with the design agency. The reason for having a couple of design options was so that we could test and confirm 3D design and CNC milling feasibility with the agency. Below are the 2D renderings I developed for the three concept designs:  

3D Renderings & Design Reviews

The agency took our 2D designs and created 3D renderings of the palette design. I developed design requirements for the palette case and worked with the agency to ideate various packaging design solutions. Below are a few designs we came up with and iterated on during our review sessions: 

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We decided on a final design with a standard makeup palette container and a customizable and interchangeable inner tray for eco–friendly purposes. The idea was to allow customers to swap out the inner tray of the palette with a different palette design and product formulations based on their aesthetic and makeup preferences:

Technical Requirements & Material Testing

R2R’s products had specific packaging material requirements, such as an airtight seal, in order to preserve its unique cream-based liquid formulations. We also needed to consider technical requirements for production feasibility. My friend and I researched different types of color cosmetic packaging materials that would meet all requirements.

We worked with the agency to develop 3D models to test a select list of materials, including wood, stone, plastics, and metal, for the inner tray of the custom palette design. We had the opportunity to visit the design studio and create 3D carvings with the materials. This was a cool experience as we got to experience using CNC Milling machines. 

We extracted small sections of our palette design and developed simple images to test with the CNC Milling machine and various materials. We carved the extracted image into each material and used these 3D mockups to test the product formulations. 

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Final Design & 3D Models

After testing the different materials, we decided to use bamboo wood to align with the brand’s eco-friendly vision. We worked with the agency to develop 3D models of the final palette tray design using 3D printers and CNC machine mockups. Our goal was to have these 3D mockups on-hand to take to packaging manufacturers in the future.

Next Steps & Learnings

As for next steps, we hope to go into production and produce a test batch of the customs art palette design. Our goal is to gather feedback from our family and friends and iterate on the design as well as formulations before going into full production.

‍A few learnings from this experience:

• Gather thorough design and technical requirements
• Your design ideas may not always be feasible in production
• 3D modeling is something I want to experiment more with!