Blue skies ahead as the BXP annual design competition returns to its roots.
As the longest running and most popular editorial project by BXP magazine, the annual Makeover Challenge champions the power of package design to elevate the brand experience. First conceived as an academic exercise in package design, the Makeover Challenge brands traditionally are encouraged to choose a product that isn’t slated for redesign in the near future.
Enter 2020. Early last year, society was struggling meeting families’ basic needs such as education. Additionally, the revenue models that gave oxygen to nonprofits, like many other businesses and brands, were crushed under the weight of the pandemic. BXP editors knew that the much beloved contest had to pivot. So BXP met, virtually, with South Carolina Aquarium’s director of marketing, sales and strategic communications, and a parent herself, Amie Yam-Babinchak to explore how the BXP community could work with them to help parents while fulfilling the Aquarium’s ocean conservancy education mission.
After discussing the pivot with the agency competitors, the firms — Cuticone Design, Grupo imasD, Lundmark Advertising + Design—not only wanted to help the Aquarium ideate, but also wanted to donate the creative to the Aquarium.
A grateful Yam-Babinchak and South Carolina Aquarium’s membership manager Kayla Halchak quickly identified the best path forward in the limited time frame: Create brand assets, including a welcome kit and online lessons, to launch a future Kids Club. Grupo imasD’s concepts, pictured here, took the top prize, but all the 2020 competitors are winners for their generous spirits.
A year later with vaccines bringing hope for some return of life before COVID-19, it’s time for the Makeover Challenge to return to its roots. The 18th annual competition will again be a blue-sky exercise of the power of package design and designers to transform the brand experience. There were many applications to be the spotlighted brand. One stood out: Bryson Industries’ vice president of brand development Steven O’Neill’s application. He wooed us with the story of the brand’s eco-minded CitruSafe BBQ Grill Cleaner, noting, “It’s “our flagship product, and the product our company was founded.”
Advertisement
Three spectacular teams — JDA, Inc., Levitskie Creative LLC and Spark—will be working with O’Neill to discover opportunities to reposition the product within the welcoming parameters of an academic exercise. BXP will be featuring the brand and the teams over the next two issues. Turn the page to meet the first
agency-team — JDA.
