DonPackaging
How has your prior experience in prepress, account management and product launches helped with your current position at BDA?
Mastering high-end color retouch and production artwork (prepress) taught me the necessary process controls and expectation for print excellence. Managing accounts directly to understand the vision and message was paramount in delivering outstanding creative. I've gained knowledge and respect for all phases of the supply chain; including retail execution and strategy through multiple global product launches. Building a brand is about passion, consistency and most importantly the delivery. I have been fortunate to deliver some of the largest brands to the world.
Where do your ideas come from? What are you inspired by?
My inspiration comes from the marketplace, from grocery stores to consumer electronics. Keeping an eye on trends is important. I analyze categories in the market and take note of what's working and what isn't working visually. Capturing the uniqueness of a product and presenting it in an engaging way is the challenge. I admire ideas from other people. An idea can come from anyone at anytime. How it's interpreted and delivered is where your creativity shines through.
Say you've been tasked with designing a POS display for a nationwide CPG campaign. Assuming you've been provided all of the necessary guidelines, what's step 1?
The complexity of a POS display has an incredible amount of variables: Creative, cost, retailer/buyer, budget, co-packing, supply chain. If all the right questions have been answered, the first step would be to take a field trip and analyze the retailer, competition and intended placement of the display. This will inspire creative development and help outline the obstacles you'll likely encounter. It's impetrative your concepts represent reality, and are within the targeted budget. Most display programs are based primarily on sell-through of the product. So if the display costs more than the products on it, it probably won't fly.
What's the most challenging aspect of your job?
Developing packaging or displays for products that don't exist. They literally haven't been born, and might not even be associated with a specific brand yet. In those cases, the sky's the limit. It's a welcome challenge.
What sustainable packaging solutions are catching on?
All packaging that has a true sustainability story is gaining traction. My favorites are the ecotrap, natralock, enviroshell designs. It's recycled plastic trapped between paper substrate. It stacks well, it ships well, it sells well. It reduces plastics by 50 to 80 percent vs. traditional clams.
You hear a lot about corn-based materials, pulp molding, bamboo and recycled rubber. A lot of these new materials sound cool, have brilliant stories and mean well, but realistically are not suitable—yet—for infrastructure.
What about paper?
Paper is sustainable when managed. As long as we can maintain managed forests and protect old growth with companies like FSC and SFI policing the industry, this is the future. I grew up around logging in the Northwest, and when it's done right and well managed, even the animals benefit. As an avid big game hunter, I've seen first-hand the impact of logging a managed forest. It appears devastating at first, then animals appear out of nowhere. Then more animals. Now it's springtime and there's new growth everywhere. It's beautiful. Five years pass and the trees are 10 feet high. Five more years pass and you can barely walk into the forest. That's sustainable. I have witnessed it.
Any projects in your portfolio you're especially proud of?
In the beginning of my career I thought I hit the top when I was retouching color on Victoria's Secret, Niemen Marcus and Disney catalogs. Then I helped develop and launch the Xbox and Xbox 360 brands globally and felt pretty tall. Then packaging design and POS for Windows 7 seemed like a pinnacle. Now I'm with BDA helping define the POWER A brand. With BDA's long-term plans, I feel like my portfolio hasn't even started.
You operate Wetfly.net, a fly fishing equipment company, with a friend. How's business?
Wetfly has been in business since 1999. We had the ìbig ideaî of becoming rich overnight and started the business about the same time Amazon and ebay were capturing headlines. It was the dot com era! We quickly learned that our customers were apprehensive of the Internet and spent a lot of time educating that purchasing online was safe. Since we didn't get rich overnight we refined our goals: To fund our fly fishing trips. For the first six months we each contributed $60 to pay for the hosting and POS software. From that point forward we have never contributed a personal dime. Business has been great and we would like to hire BDA as our merchandise partner some day!
What business knowledge have you gained from this venture?
The most important business lesson from Wetfly I've learned is about profit margin. If you buy and sell products, there are costs around taxes, importing, freight forwarding, shipping, loan interests and more Knowing your landed cost is everything. I feel like I can understand a client better knowing the similar challenges they face when developing creative solutions that impact their bottom line.
What are your favorite fishing spots?
Yeah right! How about my most memorable spot? Without a doubt it was the Kenai in Alaska. It was a step back in time with pristine untouched nature everywhere. Wild fish and lots of them. I don't know how many I caught, but I was sure sore after two days of fishing. It's true, everything is bigger in Alaska.