Candylab Toys
Sam Cordell
I joined the Candylab team in the full-time role of graphic designer and later product developer following a personal project in which I designed an airplane in the style of Candylab's beautiful wooden toys. The sections below detail a subset of my responsibilities and the processes through which I approach product, packaging, and graphic design projects.
Product Design
I have designed 15+ products for Candylab's own catalog as well as numerous for external partnerships, with production runs ranging from just 5 bespoke pieces to 5000+ units. I have worked with brands such as Netflix, Starbucks Reserve, MoMA, Herman Miller, and more.
Black Seed Bagels Custom Van
As a New York City-based company, Candylab has partnered with favorite local brands to design and produce a series of custom vehicles. I coordinated with the team at Black Seed Bagels, from project planning to the design and fabrication of the van itself as well as its packaging.
Design Process
I reviewed Black Seed's brand assets and sourced reference imagery of their real-world delivery truck, developing three speculative directions for their custom project. I created 3D renderings to give the client the best idea possible of what the finished product could look like.
Once they made their choice, their favorite being the closest to the full-sized counterpart, the project was ready for fabrication. Traditional woodworking techniques, 3D printing, vinyl design and application and hand painting are all combined when making a product in-house.
Macaron Vans
Design Process
My involvement in the development of Candylab's Macaron Vans began just after the woodwork had been finalized. The canvas was set, and I could begin to finalize graphics to be sent to our suppliers. I started with a hand sketch and some isometric exploration, and was then brought into 3D and eventually prototyped.
Initially, I created unique 'brands' for each van, featuring names that captured something a bit stereotypically French. Some added a layer of personal connection, as seen in the van with the brand La maison d'Alice, Alice being my homestay mother when I studied in Paris. We decided the small text created production challenges, and the fictional brands were not as impactful as a simple, single word, resulting in the final design choices shown below.
This production run required the purchase of multiple new colors of paint – for base colors – and ink – for all screen-printed graphics. With only one minor change to the brown base color for the Framboise van, I was able to confirm Pantone® colors for all vans, approve factory samples, and release production.
Packaging Design
I lead the packaging design process for all new and products, starting from initial concept and 3D rendering to mockup fabrication, dieline creation, and finally proof review and production approval. The project below details the packaging design of one of Candylab's premium products, the Americana™ Fire Truck.
Fire Truck Sleeve + Box
The Americana™ Fire Truck was a product that did not match and preceding product's form factor. In turn, I developed an entirely new dieline and box style to be used exclusively for this item.
Design Process
Multiple avenues were explored for packaging and productizing this flagship product. At the outset of the project, an existing dieline was set to be used that was about 40% larger than necessary. I designed, rendered, and prototyped an alternate box and set of cardboard inserts to keep this product safe in transit and beautiful on the shelf. The resulting box conformed to the product precisely and better fit our retailers' needs, featuring a premium gloss-printed 400GSM paper sleeve surrounding a black paper-covered fluted cardboard locking box.
Following prototyping, files were sent to the supplier and proofs received. After testing the proofs with production sample product, paper engineering issues were rectified and all cardboard inserts finalized.
The dieline was now set, and artwork could be safely applied and scaled to meet packaging dimensions. I modified the Pantone™ colors for the consumer-facing sleeve to better match the production vehicle, and following a final round of digital-only proofs, production was approved!
Graphic Design
My role as graphic designer at Candylab incorporated many tasks: Email marketing campaign design, social media graphics, layout and typography for product manuals, along with internal documents and external pitch decks that helped form lasting brand partnerships.
An early project of mine at Candylab was the creation and management of our Fall 2022 print and digital catalogs. The product catalog design process synthesized many of the principles used in the tasks listed above.
Layout + Type Design: Product Catalog
More than 30 products had been added since the previous edition and new data gathered from users, thus a substantial redesign was required.
Design Process
I revised all pages to reflect our newest releases and better feature existing product, developing graphics and type to draw attention to these items.
Following feedback from our wholesale customers, I incorporated a scannable UPC underneath each SKU to improve the ease-of-use of our catalog, as previously they would print and paste each barcode manually on the product grid.
I researched and chose a supplier and managed the proof process, which proved to be quite involved. Following multiple rounds of revision due to color imperfections in the print, I released production and the physical catalog was complete!
The digital catalog required reformatting and preparation for digital publishing. QR codes linking to the web-hosted catalog were added to print materials in preparation for Fall trade shows, and all links to the prior catalogs were updated.
Conclusion
If you've gotten this far, thank you for reading! I hope you have enjoyed this window into some of my responsibilities at Candylab Toys. If you have any questions or a concept that you need realized, please don't hesitate to reach out. I would love to discuss your project and help bring it to life!
-Sam
