Toy & Collectible Packaging
Packaging design for toy and collectible lines, from first sketch to store shelf.
Toy packaging is its own kind of design problem. The box has to survive a crowded shelf, hook a kid in about two seconds, and still behave on the production line. These three lines gave me all of that at once, and I carried each from the first logo sketch through the final production files.
MY ROLE: Packaging Design, Die Line Design, Rendered Mockups
As a wrap up to the project, I built a complete brand guideline for the series, which stretched over two seasons and expanded into bathtubs and unicorn babyz.
This is the part that never makes the highlight reel but makes or breaks a pack. I laid out every element on an accurate die line, adjusting and updating it so the artwork and the physical structure fit like a glove. The pack ran foil paper with an ink overlay, which meant building precise masking layers so the metallic shine and the printed color each landed exactly where they should. I also mapped the placements for the extra components, like the bottles with their plastic overlay, so everything the factory needed was accounted for before the file ever left my desk.
Where art and machine meet
MY ROLE: Logo Development
A logo with a twist
The Glitter Babyz logo started where logos usually do, as a rough sketch. Here's the twist: back then the line wasn't called Glitter Babyz at all. It was I ❤️ U Baby.
I refined that sketch through cleanup and finished layout into a polished logotype, one that could hold its own on a busy shelf and still read as sweet and sparkly up close. Every curve and weight got tuned so it worked as the hero of the pack and still shrank down cleanly onto the smaller pieces across the line. I built a matching set of icons to go with it, one for each of the four dolls.
Then, at the last minute, MGA renamed the whole line to Glitter Babyz. Because the letterforms and the icon system were built clean and flexible, reworking them for the new name was quick, and none of the earlier craft went to waste.
MGA Entertainment
Glitter Babyz
I developed the identity system and brand packaging for MGA's line of adorable color-shifting baby dolls over the course of two seasons.
MY ROLE:Color Palette and Packaging Design
Applying the graphics
The first application of all that initial design research was on the packaging for small blind-boxed individual characters in pop-open tubes. These unrolled into garage scenes that matched the character's personality and were displayed in PDQs with a character display area.
The packaging design had to be flexible enough for all of this variety and still remain consistent and on brand. The plush went from hand-sized in blind boxes to basketball sized in dump box displays, and it all had to look the same.
Initial sketches and box comp designs
MY ROLE: Brand & Packaging Development
Design inspiration from the show
Along with the show's style guide, I was handed a few dozen stills to get a feel for its world. From that inspiration I created an entire series of stickers, patterns, and icons to serve as the base of the package design. With the bright colors, distinctive icons, and super-cute characters anchoring the layouts, I knew anyone familiar with the show would spot the theme from across the aisle and connect instantly to key episode moments through the iconography.
Embodying the chaotically adorable world of these half-hamster, half-car characters was the easy part. Keeping it under control proved to be the actual design challenge.
MGA Entertainment
Pui Pui Molcar
Based on the enormously popular Japanese stop-action TV shorts, Pui Pui Molcar, I developed the packaging for MGA's prospective plush line.
Skills & Expertise
CPG Packaging Design
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Full lifecycle, sketch to shipping
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Dieline creation & structural modification
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Foil, specialty finishes & print production
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Licensed IP & brand-guide stewardship
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Blind-box, hang-tag & PDQ / retail-display design
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Multi-SKU line and multi-season consistency
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Overseas factory & structural-engineer collaboration
Graphic Design
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Logotype & wordmark design
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Typography & layout
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Color systems
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Print-ready production files
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Adobe Illustrator & Photoshop (expert)
Digital Illustration
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Character & icon design
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Vector & raster illustration
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Pattern & graphic-asset creation
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Hand-drawn through to production vector
Design Systems
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Multi-SKU and multi-season line cohesion
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Icon & graphic catalogs built for reuse
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Brand-guide adherence across every format
RELATABLE
WabiSabi Kitty Klub
MY ROLE: Logo Development
From sketch to puffy vectors
Relatable came with two concepts for their new blind-box line, WabiSabi. One was to wrap the logo's letterforms in soft fur, and the other was to hav ethe letters look to be soft and pillowy like vinyl. The fur version, though fun, was harder to read, so I built the pillowy version and softened the palette to match the cuddliness of the plush hidden inside. That's the one that won.
MY ROLE: Color Palette and Packaging Design
A box as cute as the plush inside
A blind box has no window, so you'd think there's less to design.
So I designed every detail to do that selling: a fun, softly colored box aimed squarely at their audience of tween and teen girls and early twenty-somethings. And really, who could resist those eyes and not tear the package open to hug whatever's inside?
Not me!
CONTACT ME:
Tel. 818.527.5551
Los Angeles Metro
@2026 Graye Smith, all rights reserved