ELLE By Me Wholesale Kit Packaging Design

The main goal for the ELLE By Me Wholesale kit had one job, and that was to make someone who's never bought yarn want to start (or, look pleasing enough to purchase as a gift). Premier had the license, the yarns, and the tools. What it needed was packaging that could introduce ELLE By Me to a wholesale buyer and a first-time maker in the same glance.

I designed the kit packaging for both a knit and crochet variant: a branded box bundling an ELLE By Me yarn with a Premier Basix Beech needle or hook and a stitch marker. The first round was clean and editorial, with gold foiling on all gold print areas.

Then wholesale retailer feedback came back with something worth listening to. Buyers noted that consumers want to touch or see a sensory product, and without that access, they open the box on the shelf. My solution was a clear PVC window. It let the yarn's texture and color speak through the packaging without compromising the ELLE brand's visual standard. Samples were printed at each stage to verify it worked in hand, not just on screen.

ELLE provided the palette: core and accent colors pulled from their upcoming year's marketing direction for partnership and license lines. My job was to select from within that system. Capulet Olive, Peach Whip, Cork, Copper Tan, and Boat Olive made the cut. Muted enough to feel editorial, warm enough to feel tactile.

I built out the component pricing analysis across four quantity tiers, from 1,000 to 20,000 units. Each tier accounted for the base packaging cost per unit, plus component add-ons: a Premier Basix Beech needle or hook and a stitch marker, priced separately for the knit and crochet variants.

That meant finding a manufacturer who could execute gold foiling and a clear PVC window at the quality the ELLE brand required, then working with them through each sample round to get it there. The kind of work that keeps a concept from dying in a budget conversation, and keeps the final product from looking like it survived one.

Packaging lives and dies in revision. The first round and the final are rarely the same project. What starts as a strong concept gets pressure-tested by feedback, manufacturing constraints, and real buyers standing in real aisles.

The distance between round one and final design is where my real, true creative work happens. The initial design for this project brief, as seen here to the right, went through the ringer and came out sharper in the end.