PACKAGING DESIGN

Homedics

A system-wide packaging overhaul that solved a multi-SKU color problem and elevated HoMedics to a premium wellness shelf presence.

ROLE

Senior Packaging Designer

SCOPE

Full Product Line Rebrand

RETAILERS

Costco, Walmart, Target, & more

PRODUCT

Folding Boxes, Cartons, Labels

Homedics' 2025 packaging used a rich teal-to-dark-navy gradient as its primary system. Against white products, it was striking and premium. But the product line was expanding rapidly, black massagers, colorful thermometers, multi-tone devices, and the teal was starting to fight the products rather than frame them.

The brief: redesign the system to work universally across SKUs, modernize the lifestyle story, and bring hierarchy and consistency back to a line that had grown organically across several design iterations.


Overview

The Brief

THE CHALLENGE

What the teal system couldn't solve

Product color conflicts

Teal read beautifully behind white and ivory product colorways. Black products and anything with orange, red, or blue accents clashed. There was no neutral ground the whole line could share.

Hierarchy buried in gradient

The gradient pulled visual weight toward the background rather than the product name. Lifestyle headlines were competing for the hero position with the product itself.

Benefits hidden

Consumer benefit communication was scattered across bullet points at small sizes. Nothing was scannable at arm's length, a critical failure on a planogram with 4–8 facing SKUs.

Imagery felt generic

Stock photography didn't align with Homedics' wellness positioning. AI-generated lifestyle imagery opened the door to consistent, brand-specific visual storytelling at scale.

Step 01

Competitive audit & system audit

Photographed Homedics product across Target, Walmart, and Costco planograms. Documented where the teal system succeeded and where it broke down against both the product assortment and the competitor shelf set (Sharper Image, Omron, Renpho).

Step 02

Direction exploration

Explored three directions: a continuation of the gradient system with a broader palette, a clean white approach, and a warm cream system. The cream direction emerged as the strongest neutral — it conveyed warmth, approachability, and premium wellness without fighting any product color.

Step 03

Ai lifestyle imagery integration

Used AI image generation to develop a consistent lifestyle photography style — warm interior settings, real-use moments, consistent lighting direction. This gave the team creative control over brand alignment in a way stock photography never could.

Step 04

Mock boxes for retail comparison

Printed physical mock boxes at full scale and took them directly to Target. Placed them on the actual planogram next to competitors to evaluate shelf presence, readability at distance, and pickup-worthiness. Several iteration rounds came directly from this in-store testing — a crucial step that no screen-based review could replicate.

Step 05

Hierarchy system finalized

Locked the type hierarchy: product name largest, lifestyle claim secondary, benefit section below mid-panel, icon row at base. Cast shadows introduced on white-on-cream products to create visual separation. Dieline templates updated across folding carton, clamshell, and label formats.

THE PROCESS

Brief to retail shelf in iterations

THE CHALLENGE

What the teal system couldn't solve

Previous System
Teal Gradient
  • Background: dark teal-to-navy gradient
  • Hero element: lifestyle tagline ("Breathe Easy, Anytime, Anywhere")
  • Product name: secondary weight, smaller than headline
  • Benefits: small-scale bullet list with icons
  • Lifestyle: generic stock photography
  • Works well: white products only
  • Breaks down: black, orange, multi-color SKUs



REDESIGNED SYSTEM
Cream lifestyle
  • Background: warm cream — universal neutral
  • Hero element: product name, largest type on panel
  • Lifestyle claim: supporting line, secondary hierarchy
  • Benefits: 3-blurb section, scannable at shelf distance
  • Lifestyle: AI-generated, brand-consistent imagery
  • Works well: every product color in the line
  • Cast shadows: white products separate from cream field


"The teal looked great. It just looked great for one product. The cream works for all of them — and it let the product itself finally become the hero."

On the core strategic insight driving the system shift

The cream lifestyle system gave Homedics a packaging architecture that works across its full product assortment, from compact personal care devices to large home wellness appliances. The three-blurb benefit structure became a template applied across all new launches, and the AI imagery approach reduced lifestyle photography production time significantly.

In the Target shelf test, the new packaging read as premium against Sharper Image and distinctly warmer and more approachable than a clinical aesthetic, landing the brand in the right competitive position.



the result

A System that Scales