Asian Paints – Packaging Blues

Asian Paints, one of the largest paint corporations in the world with operations in 17 countries and 23 manufacturing facilities, was in a bit of a spot with their rather bulky shade cards. Meant to make life easier for the architect-designer community, these shade cards (over 1800 of them!) were proving to be more than a handful.

The Company hired Design Stack to come up with a packaging solution that would essentially protect the cards and make storage and transportation a lot more manageable. We decided to go the extra mile and address a whole lot of Asian Paints’ shade card-related woes in one fell swoop. The result was a nifty, easy-to-carry toolbox-like packaging unit made from eco-friendly materials (the ‘green’ angle never hurt!) Each colour deck presents the shades that are contained inside as an element of the external packaging. This stylish look heightens the appeal for the target audience and at the same time proves very practical and functional for users as they can identify the colour categories without opening the packaging. Each deck also comes with its own user guide booklet. Essentially, all of these features make cataloging and at-a-glance referencing a piece of cake for users as well as for the company.

Plus, we suggested an online application that follows the same design logic and allows users to locate shades by colour or by deck. We suggested that in its initial, promotional stages this app could be used to drive a nationwide online voting contest, where where users are invited to rename colours. We saw this a s a good way to promote the product. And once the promotional stage is done, it becomes a permanent online digital catalogue for all Asian Paints shades that users can refer to in case of damage and loss of shade cards.