Bruce Hardwood® Cleans-Up with Foto 3D
Project: Bruce Hardwood® Product Design
Design Firm: Packaging Corporation of America®
3D Designer: Brad Bible
Client: Armstrong World Industries®
Project Summary
Packaging Corporation of America was approached by long-time client Armstrong World Industries to help them launch a new product. Armstrong had a prototype for their new Bruce Hardwood spray-on cleaner product but they needed a design for a shipping box that doubled as a shelf display and as a mini pallet display.
The Challenge
In recalling the project, Armstrong stated “The challenge was to develop a tray that would support our product not only on a shelf, but also in a mini pallet configuration, clearly communicate the brand and reinforce the look and feel of the product packaging. The deliverable we needed initially was a rendering that would illustrate the concept in a real setting.”
Designer Brad Bible knew he could achieve what the client was looking for in 3D. However, with a spray bottle prototype in hand and no 3D models Brad had a challenge that needed to be solved. Going from a physical model to a virtual model has been a significant challenge in the past. Often this meant hours of 3D modeling work that sometimes failed to capture enough detail of the real-world object.
The Solution
Brad realized that this project was a perfect fit for Strata Foto 3D and Strata 3D CX. Using a standard digital camera, Brad took a series of photographs of the prototype bottle which he then took into Foto 3D for conversion into a 3D model. Once the model was done Brad imported it into Strata 3D CX.
With the bottle in Strata 3D CX, the next step was to put Armstrong’s latest labels on the bottle. Brad prepared the labels in Adobe Photoshop and linked them to the bottle model in Strata 3D CX. The bottle was then replicated into rows to emulate the shipping configuration. With this starting point the display box was ready to be designed.
The Box Design Process
The design process is best described in Brad’s own words:
“I always like building everything from the ‘ground up’ in Strata because of the flexibility that I find it allows. For this client in particular, they usually give us a starting point of either the number of bottles X by Y or a floor size limitation that we have to take into consideration. I have to keep that in consideration as well as board caliper and any inserts that will be required for support/stability for shipment.”
Armstrong requested specific design elements be included in the display box. “The customer communicated the desire to see a tray with curved sides. The curve would carry through the curve on the product label.”
To implement the clients ideas and to explore his own, Brad enjoys the friendly interface of the Strata:
“The great thing about using Strata for this step is that I am ‘conceptualizing’ a little as I build, easily tweaking or adjusting as I go and adding textures from Photoshop or Illustrator.”
And that Adobe connection is a critical factor in Brad’s decision to use the Strata tools:
“One of the key things that I find so helpful with Strata is that it is so flexible when it comes to the line of Adobe products. When I start on a project, I like to start with Strata 3D and build as I go adding textures on the fly. I love the flexibility that CX allows for layers and importing complicated shapes from Illustrator.”
Once Brad had designs that he felt were ready to show to the client he rendered final output quality images to place into secure PDFs for email.
“I always like building everything from the ‘ground up’ in Strata because of the flexibility that I find it allows.”
The Results
Armstrong was very happy with the results:
“We were extremely pleased. The tray was consistent with the label design on the product. The rendering was fabulous. It looked like a photo had been taken of an actual mini pallet.” The bottom line? “The tray, and the mini pallet rendering were well received by our customers.” All done in the virtual world – saving time, money and resources for the design firm, the client and even the retail channel. With Strata tools there’s no need to go physical until production is a go.
“We were extremely pleased. The rendering was fabulous.
It looked like a photo had been taken of an actual mini pallet.”
