Name
Date
Type
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/
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Barn find Mini cars
2021
brand identity / Packaging design
Ever bought a toy car and thought, "Yo, why doesn't this come with a little house for it to live in?" Just me, then? I'm not weird, you're weird... Anyway, Barn Find Mini Cars is a collectible car brand that does exactly that, offering high-quality 1:64 scale cars (Hot Wheels size). Each car comes with its own unique, intricately designed wooden packaging that nods to the car's heritage and doubles as a display piece.
With sustainability at the forefront, the packaging is made entirely from wood. Each piece is painted, laser-cut, and laser-engraved inside and out, and snaps together without any glue or adhesives (kinda like Lego, but shhh, don't say that too loud. Last thing we need is a multi-billion-dollar corporation's team of lawyers coming knocking).
I handled everything on this project, from brand identity to packaging design (and my looord, don't even get me started on how many prototypes it took to get the wood snapping together perfectly without glue. I don't wanna talk about it). The brand's name comes from "barn finding", the very real culture of car hunting where people search for (or stumble across) cars that have been hidden away and forgotten for years, hoping to find the holy grail and buy it for a bargain. It's a perfect fit for a brand built around collecting.
To launch the brand, I created three distinct packaging concepts: a USA-style barn with a pick-up truck, a Japanese workshop with a zokusha-style car, and an Italian house with a classic Ferrari. Pretty cliché and obvious choices to start with, I know, but the finished products speak for themselves. Every detail, from the brand identity to the wood itself, was designed to be environmentally responsible without sacrificing on the fun factor.
