Paint Jars and Packaging

Something I have always found interesting is the way things are presented and packaged. This fascination is not restricted to the virtual world, I really do like consumer packaging (and provocative advertising). One would think that would have lead to a career making packaging or ads, but the closest thing I’ve done in terms of that is my fiddling around with HANDverk.

When eventually deciding to open up virtual shop, there are a lot of things to consider, not just what you are making and how you are planning to distribute them to the masses. How are are these things going to be presented? Will that presentation define how the store is seen, and eventually, how it is received by the public?

It’s very easy to say no. At the end of the day, the items we fill our inventory with are not tangible. After going on a shopping spree, you don’t have boxes littering your home, filling up your trash and eventually ending up recycled or in a dump. All you have to do is unpack and delete, so the package itself serves a very, very brief role. It simply keeps things contained so that those things can go to another person. Most of the time when there are lots of things to unpack, I don’t really pay much attention to the packages. I have a friend who makes role play centered clothing in-world and her philosophy is very simple. Put it in a box, sell it on the marketplace, have a bare bones in-world store with vendors.

No fancy packaging. No blog. Nothing to take away from the creating of merchandise.

Admittedly, this works for her. She pulls in a lot of Lindens each month because her stuff fills a clothing need. Advertising is essentially word of mouth, or people see it on other people. Plus there is very little competition, or at least, good competition.

Yet, I still find myself drawn to stuff that has some kind of unique packaging. Like how Lelutka has a box color kit for hair, or garment bags for clothes. Or how Burley’s hair comes in a salon drying bonnet and cape. So I figured that paint wouldn’t come in a bag, paint would come in a jar! Hence I sat down in Zbrush and made a jar, details and all.

Will it sell more paint? Probably not. But I hope that people like it for the few seconds it’s worn in their hand to be unpacked.