Packaging, Graphic Design.
KUNA is a Peruvian high-quality clothing brand that merges the world of textures and colours, developing a unique and captivating contemporary style.
KUNA finds inspiration in the magic and art of millenary Peruvian textiles and transforms garments through skilled designer hands into an avant-garde proposal. The ancient tradition combined with the application of state-of-the-art technology and a fashion forward design point of view, enable KUNA to constantly go beyond merely satisfying their customers.
KUNA Milenium is a project taken on by KUNA to reinvent the feats of textile beauty and techniques achieved by the ancient Peruvian weavers.
The company asked me to design a series of packaging solutions for their KUNA Milenium collection, including two different box sizes for scarves and shawls and a bigger box for blankets.
KUNA is committed to the preservation of the environment, the Andean communities and their knowledge and culture.
Having that in mind, an environmentally friendly packaging design was therefore important, just like the representation of the colourful textile tradition of Peru and the natural colours of the camelid fibres.
KUNA has stores worldwide, where they sell the Milenium collection.
KUNA was therefore interested in a packaging system that would be easy to transport to their stores worldwide.
Moreover, KUNA was also interested in a packaging system easy to stack and keep in the stores without compromising space.
70% of KUNA’s clients in Peru are tourists, implying that they are going to travel with the products they buy.
KUNA was therefore interested in a packaging system strong enough to endure a trip in a suitcase without losing its initial shape.
My proposal for the design of the new packaging of KUNA Milenium, was based on the Inca loom shown in the image on the right.
I decided to work with this loom for several reasons:
First of all, the geometric figures reproduced are seen throughout all previous cultures, and therefore exhibit a broad cultural representation of the Peruvian textile culture.
It is one of the most significant and important Inca designs of the textile culture of Peru.
The loom is represented in the KUNA Milenium collection in a beautiful scarf design.
The amount of design elements and graphics attracts attention and invites to investigate each element.
The arrangement of the figures isa perfect grid that generates order and cleanliness in the design.
The colours on the original loom were changed to the brand colours of KUNA.
In order to carry out this task, each graphic representation was drawn using Adobe Illustrator.
Moreover, I proposed to use recycled paper, not only to be more environmentally friendly, but also to create the feeling of the Andean landscape as well as utilising the vicuna and alpaca fibre colour range.
Several tests were made in terms of colour and size of the graphics in order to make sure that the design would be represented properly in the proposed material and that it had the desired impact on the customers.
Due to the shape of KUNA’s logo - a elongated, symmetrical and square shaped logo - I decided to create a packaging shape using as a main element a kind of pyramid or inverted triangle.
This element provides strength, symmetry and the feel of legacy to the packaging, the product and the brand.
All the packaging systems where designed to make them completely flat while disassemble and make them very easy and fast to assemble.
The boxes were designed to endure traveling in a suitcase, daily life use and to stay in good shape as a souvenir for some time, due to the thickness of the selected paper and the proposed layout for constructing the boxes.
