Adaptdefy

01. The Challenge

Adaptdefy is an accessible device company, who make products to improve quality of life for wheelchair users. When Mike approached me, he already had a cohesive brand that worked across packaging, web, and marketing. What he needed from me was a way to take this brand and apply it in a new way to packaging and comms around the launch of a new product. Working across so many different assets meant that compromising became the biggest challenge of the project: how would we establish consistency across boxes, sleeves, printouts, the works? Where would we make tradeoffs?

02. The Boxes

The most technical part of this project was the custom fit boxes, used to package spare parts. To ensure that the parts didn't move around in the box in transit, and break, it was important that the boxes fit each custom part perfectly. However, it was also important that the UX at the recieving end wasn't compromised- the part needed to slip in and out of the box easily.

As another consideration, the boxes are all different sizes. How would we establish consistency of design across differently sized boxes? Some were big enough to have plenty of space to play around with. Others hardly fit a 10 point font. Establishing the importance of compromise, and thinking from first principles, was most important here, as it allowed us to throw the 'rule book' out the window: we could try anything, and carefully compare the impact of different compromises and approaches.

I iterated, printed out, folded, measured, and repeated, until we had boxes that were both perfectly sized, and uniform in look.

‍

As a final challenge: these products are stocked in 30+ countries, with various parts coming from various factories. This meant that in order for the  experience to be as we had planned it to be, careful documentation was required - there was no room for assumptions, everything needed to be spelled out from a non-designer -point of view. This even included the set up of the files themselves. I made accompanying collateral - fitting guides for users, production guides for manufacturers, and signage for stockists, to keep the customer journey uniform and clear, from Mike's initial product designed here in Ōtautahi Christchurch, to the product being manufactured in China, and eventually, used across the world.

‍