On the shelf, the package does the selling.

Nobody runs a TV ad for a $1.25 lip jelly or a $5 solar light. The package is the ad. So we design every one in-house: more than a hundred new packaging designs a day, for around 12,000 new products a year.

100+packaging designs a day

12,000new products a year

4art departments

01Why packaging

The shelf is the ad.

In value retail there's no commercial, no salesperson in the aisle and no second chance. A shopper decides in a glance, and the package has to win it.

That's why packaging isn't the last step for us. It starts with the product, and it gets the same people, time and care.

Stop the shopper

Color, shape and a clear promise that read from across the aisle.

Say it in a second

What it is, what it does and why it's a deal, before the shopper walks past.

Look like more

Good design costs the same as bad design. Ours makes a $1 product look like it belongs on a much higher shelf.

Survive the trip

Structural design that ships, stacks, hangs and arrives in one piece, from the factory to the peg.

02Styled to sell

The package and the picture, together.

Collections styled and lettered for buyer presentations and seasonal campaigns.

Pizza cutter, server and tongs styled with the headline The art of dining

Glass candles styled with the headline A different pleasure every day

Halloween candles and a skeleton styled with the headline Ghostly Glow

03The studio

Every discipline it takes to make something people pick up.

Packaging designers, graphic designers, illustrators, 3D modelers and artists, product developers, brand and marketing teams. All in-house, all working on the same products.

A designer at her screen laying out packaging for an LED clock, with the printed proof, the box and the clock on her desk — In the studio: the artwork on screen, the printed proof and the product on the desk.

Packaging design

Boxes, blister cards, header cards, sleeves and labels, for every aisle we make.

Graphic design

Type, color and layout that read from six feet away.

Illustration

Characters, patterns and seasonal art, drawn in-house.

3D modeling

Products and packs built in 3D before anything is tooled.

3D art & rendering

Photoreal renders, so buyers can see a whole set before samples exist.

Product development

Designers and engineers who shape the product itself, not just its box.

Branding

Names, logos and identities for our own brands and for retailers' labels.

Marketing

The sell sheets, presentations and materials that help a program sell in.

Tuck-end box

Blister card

Header card

Sleeve

Label

Hang tag

Tray display

Slanted display

Cut-carton display

Six packaging formats and three PDQ shelf displays the studio designs every day, shown blank. The artwork goes on last.

04Where we work

Four art departments. One shelf in mind.

Studios in the US and Asia: close to our customers, and close to the factories that print and pack what we design. The work keeps moving across time zones.

United States Tampa, Florida Graphic design and art, next to our US headquarters and close to our customers.

Global headquarters Shenzhen Art and design beside product development and the store-scale showroom.

Art department Guangzhou Close to the factories that print and pack what we design.

Where it started Taiwan Our art department in Taiwan, where Fourstar began in 1975.

05From brief to shelf

How a package gets made.

Five steps, the same team from start to finish, and buyers can judge it on a real shelf before anything is printed.

1
Brief

The retailer, the aisle, the price point and the shopper we are designing for.
2
Concepts

Several directions: sketches, illustration and 3D renders.
3
3D and mock-ups

Models and printed mock-ups, judged on a real shelf in our showroom.
4
Artwork and labeling

Final art, plus the label copy and warnings each market requires.
5
On the shelf

Print-ready files to the factory, checked against the approved sample.