Experience & Packaging Design: Happy Meal Edition
Brief: Create a new Happy Meal experience for McDonald’s using an iterative design process. This will include the research, design, and construction of a brand new box. A theme is required as well as a clear target audience.
Challenge: The objective of this project was to invoke excitement about Halloween in younger kids. It is such a fun time of the year that everyone looks forward to and this experience further feeds into the anticipation of the big night. Every food container houses one of the most recognizable Halloween related monsters. The main meal box was created to be reversed, providing children a chance to "carve" their own Jack O' Lantern with the help of their parents.
Role: Research, Visual Design & Illustration, Printing Graphics
Application & Equipment: Procreate, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Lightroom, Adobe Photoshop
Client: Class project
Main Box
The exterior of my box is pumpkin themed, to relate to the interior that you will see next. This is where I implemented the McDonald's colors to clearly show it is affiliated with the company. The colors that I chose are traditional Halloween colors, consistent with the rest of the containers included. On the front panel there is a prompt for an adult to reverse this box in order to access the instructions for the activity.
The interior of the main box is Jack O' Lantern themed, complete with pumpkin lines across the entire design and vines reaching up into the McDonald's M handle. This is where the child and parent view the instructions for reassembling the box and completing the activity.
6pc Chicken McNuggets
This container is witch/graveyard themed, complete with rolling hills and tombstones as well as a witch creating a "6" pattern over the moon. The inside of this design is adorned with a ghost pattern.
French Fries
This container is themed after Frankenstein. I chose an appropriate green and wanted his face on the front panel of the box. The side panels include the bolts in his head and his ears.
The Cup
This container is Dracula themed, complete with his bloody teeth and the phrase "Happy Halloween" written across the label.
The Toy
The toy I chose to come with this experience is a little battery-operated tealight candle. Since it wouldn't be smart to light a real candle inside a cardboard Jack O' Lantern, I chose to include one with every box. Because of this, the packaging is decorated with a candle graphic.
Research
Below is my initial step in deciding what I wanted to do. I created a board using Milanote and organized all of my research. As you can see, McDonald's has previously done a Halloween themed Happy Meal, except it came in a plastic bucket.
I then physically went to McDonald's and purchased a Happy Meal. I hadn't had one in years and so I wanted to revisit the experience as well as have the physical containers so that I could have the most accurate measurements as possible.
Sketches
I then started sketching out my ideas and came up with a general idea of what I wanted on each box. I mostly stuck with my original ideas, but I did change up a few things.
Video Illustration Timelapses
This was my final process in creating the illustrations for each box. Each of these designs was done in Procreate.
Prototyping and Printing/Construction
I spent a good amount of time in the Digital Lab printing everything out. I used cardstock to ensure it would be strong enough to hold its shape and cut everything out using an xacto knife and ruler. After this, I used an ek folding tool to fold and rubber cement to glue it all together.
Reflection
The most challenging part of this project for me was finding a way to make the McDonald's colors match in a way that didn't seem forced with the rest of the designs. Red and yellow are two colors that aren't associated with Halloween and so I wanted them to mesh naturally. One other problem I encountered was that the flaps that hold the main box together on the top did not want to stay and kept ripping. This meant that I wasn't able to get as many pictures as I had wanted with the closed box.
With this being said, I am happy with the results and I feel as if this meal encompasses everything there is to be excited about during Halloween-time. This is definitely a Happy Meal I would've begged my parents for when I was younger. I feel as if the presence of the Jack O' Lantern activity makes it a fun, interactive experience. Especially due to the fact that you do need an adult to help you, it can bring parents and children closer together and help them learn to solve problems and be creative together.
