General 3 — Grace Kim

Mother’s Day 2024

BARNES & NOBLE | PAPER SOURCE Illustration, Typography, Pattern Design, Product Design & Development, Print Production

Initial Product Design Request

Trinket Dish or Catchall Tray
Will sit in both Barnes & Noble and Paper Source stores.
Sales from previous years showed that our customer gravitated towards higher price points for this format.

My Design Thinking Process

This product should be simple to appeal to customers at Barnes & Noble and Paper Source.
Flowers are the main motif for Mother’s Day. Since I didn’t want to illustrate flowers onto a product I decided to make the product look like a flower!
- Idea #1: Diecut flower shape

I wanted this design to be unique because we often carry single trinket dishes. While researching what was out in the market, I came across a set of stackable trinket dishes and I knew this was the format I wanted to work with. Also, bringing in a set would allow for a higher price point, as requested in the initial design brief.
- Idea #2: Stackable
After reviewing, my concept sketch we decided to move forward with this design as a coaster set rather than a trinket dish. Since the walls of the coasters are raised the customer could use these as a small trinket dish if desired.