Janice Duarte 4 Council
March 3, 2018
Hart, Vida & Partners
November 21, 2018
 

Challenge

Direct Source Packaging makes the best bags in the world. That’s why when top luxe brands and retailers like Bloomingdales, Bergdorf Goodman, and Kate Spade, need to put their names on a bag or a box that will hold some of the most expensive merchandise in the world, today they choose those made by DSP. But, quality is just one of the purchase-driving attributes. The firm is continually innovating through materials usage and manufacturing and printing techniques.

Back in 2012, when the Create/DSP relationship began, Direct Source Packaging’s initial challenge to Create was to design a unique brand identity and creative one of a kind packaging that would help show off its capabilities.


Solution

The key to Direct Source Packaging’s success lay in celebrating the firm’s innovating engineering, use of materials, and manufacturing quality. The strategy is to present DSP as an upscale and contemporary thought-leader and business partner, appealing to its exclusive customer base: designers, fashion-conscious brand managers and bottom-line oriented purchasing managers at large retail organizations.

To help prospective buyers see themselves in DSP’s products, Create made design the hero. Each year a new set of shopping bags is created to evoke the joy, sophistication, luxury, whimsey, and refinement of the corporate buyers they are targeting (and the retail shoppers who are their customers) and showcase DSP high-end print quality.

With established success, Create from the get go designed DSP’s brand, logo, and visual identity. DSP’s deep red communicates confidence. The logo’s circular holding shape projects strength and stability. The san serif typeface speaks of contemporary sensibilities. Abundant white space and the clean and spare layouts of the website, media/product kits, and trade show booths all further serve to make the typically colorful products stand out.

Create’s work extends into all aspects of DSPs marketing world: branding, digital marketing, direct mail, E-commerce, illustration (lots of it, marketing materials, packaging design to promote the brand (lots of that too, and tradeshow booths and displays.


Results

The bag designs Create has created for DSP over the years have gotten more than a little attention. Each year, Global Shop, Luxe Pack and other attendees make them must-have items. We've even been told they people collect and frame them. We're flattered and will continue working to please this most discerning audience. Beyond that, DSP has grown to be an industrial powerhouse. We like to think we are their secret weapon!


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