Help A Broader View, Inc. with a new toy packaging design

We are an educational puzzle company that has been around for over 10 years. We focus on sales to major retailers, so your designs would be displayed all over and we do not mind you using them as part of your portfolio. I would like to note that we are looking for someone we can go to on a steady basis, so as an added stipend to the winner besides the cash, you will also receive first bidding privileges on the packaging upgrades of our current product line and the development of our new product packaging.

To summarize, we need a packaging design for a new product. Our size specifications, die lines, and the majority of the design elements are already complete, so the project will not be time consuming. What we are looking for on this project and all of our projects is someone who is talented at bringing the elements together in an eye-popping, family fun, intriguing way, while still ensuring that the packaging quickly explains the purpose of the product. If you are familiar with product packaging, then you have probably heard that you have 3 seconds to (1) catch the customer’s attention and (2) explain the purpose of the product. If this sounds up your alley, then let’s get into the details on this particular project. ---------------------------------- We have designed a new puzzle, "The Solar System & Beyond". We have the puzzle design completed; now we are looking for the packaging design of the puzzle box for retail shelves. Good news is that it is already slotted for hundreds of retail locations for 4th quarter. Files you will need: I have uploaded an initial rough draft of the box packaging called “ABV_Solar-System_top_2011_07_03_CS2.ai”. I work with the Adobe CS5 Suite, so you can submit anything up to that, but I have back-saved it to CS2 in case you have an earlier version. Due to the back-saving, the artboard location may get reset, but all other elements seem to remain steady. Because of uploading file constraints with 99designs.com, you will also need to download the two non-embedded files, “Solar-System-puzzle-resized-for-box.jpg” and “solar-system-logo.psd” and keep these files in the same folder as the AI file. Once it is opened correctly on your system, it should look like “ABV_Solar-System_sample.jpg”. The final file I have unloaded is “151_global_puzzle_box.jpg”. Its purpose will be explained in the next paragraph. If you are to place or embed any raster files in your submission which is fine, please make them 300 dpi. One of the unique aspects of this puzzle is that some of the pieces will be shaped like the planets, the sun, and other stellar bodies; this needs to be conveyed on the packaging. To precisely explain this, please refer to the attachment of the box of one of our products, The Global Puzzle (attachment is called “151_global_puzzle_box.jpg”). This product has a similar uniqueness in that it is a puzzle of the world that has pieces shaped like countries. If you look at the box, you will see that it has extruded pieces that help to illustrate this point very quickly. The issue I have with the Global Puzzle is that I feel it is not eye-catching enough and the look is quite outdated. So with the Solar System and Beyond, I want to illustrate the point quickly like the Global Puzzle but get it to really grab the eye quickly as well. As I mentioned, all of the elements are laid out for you in “ABV_Solar-System_top_2011_07_03_CS2.ai”, but the only thing that I want to stay constant is the puzzle image in the middle. I have extruded a few pieces already including Saturn, Uranus, an arbitrary galaxy, and a regular puzzle piece. These are not final as they do not actually look like puzzle pieces which is the intended effect. I would like these to be redone by re-extracting Saturn, Uranus, the arbitrary galaxy and a regular puzzle piece from the puzzle image so that they actually look like puzzle pieces with depth floating in front of the puzzle. What was done here was just quickly drafted to show an example. Also important is the title “The Solar System & Beyond” along with the tag line “The Pieces are Actually Shaped like the Planets and other Stellar Objects” (still working on the best tag line). The tag line could be placed at the top as it is now or preferably in one of the extruded pieces so that it pops more, if you can make this look appropriate. I will leave this to your design discretion. Either way, the title and tag line that are there now serve just as a rough draft. Please don’t let them stifle your creative ability. For the title you can choose to build off of the current title if you like it or move in a completely different direction. It’s up to you. Any other cool things that you can think of to draw the eye without making it overly crowded would be greatly appreciated. One thought would be a small picture of a family in the bottom corner with elliptical orbits and planets spinning around them as they look at them inquisitively. If you think you could pull that off that would definitely go a long way in your favor. Background color is black at the moment, but that as well is not set. If you feel another color is appropriate, then go for it. This will not be a deciding factor in judging your talent. The box size is already set at 12.5” x 8.5” x 2”. And the die lines have already been included in the AI vector file for lid of the box. The bleeds are already set just by the dimensions of the background layer. Use margins of 1/8” from any box edge or corner. As for the four sides, you don’t need to worry about them for the first submission. To focus on just the front cover of the box, you can toggle the layer called “cover”. Don’t worry about the bar code and company copyright stuff. We will squeeze them in where appropriate. As a suggestion, you may want to stop by your local Barnes N Noble or Target or Toys-r-us to see what other successful puzzle and/or game companies are doing. Or just look up top puzzles and top games on the web. I think that should just about do it. I look forward to your submission.

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