Sneaker Ball 2020 (or SNKR Ball 2020 to those in the know) is an annual Black History Month event, sponsored by Nike’s Black Employee Network. It’s a thank-you celebration for those partners who have helped support the cause of black empowerment and social change throughout the year.

Nike wanted to create an immersive environment for the event; that meant bringing many vendors together in a complex orchestrated build-out of the space – including live music, video, shoe displays, and a living garden of grass, moss, ferns, and flowers.

But first up on the run of show was Premier Press.  Nike asked us to design the interior shell of the two-level space to house the festivities. They provided photo and graphic assets, and we created the overall look and feel of the space. We dressed the walls, floor-to-ceiling, with dramatic photo collages and wood-grain and concrete-texture printed fabric. The special temporary wall covering, PhotoTex, has an adhesive backing that makes it easy to put up and easy to remove without damaging the walls. And unlike standard wall vinyl, PhotoTex is PVC-free, so it’s environmentally friendly – something that’s important to Nike and to us at Premier. 

We even built a rigid covering to disguise the partition doors as a concrete column, in order to complete the illusion of a lush outdoor urban environment, and covered the windows with a semi-transparent film to keep the party private.

At the last minute, Nike discovered that their video projection for a shoe was splashing light onto the wall behind it, so we came back in and covered that area with black vinyl. Problem solved.

Black community VIPs, celebrities, Nike employees, and volunteers arrived wearing their favorite Nikes, packed the space, and partied all night. It was an event to remember.

This video from P-Town Media shows how the environment enhanced the event.

Gears of War 5 – or Gears 5 – is a third-person action and adventure video game that was released in the summer of 2019 and created for the Xbox One. To commemorate the highly anticipated sequel to the Gears of War franchise, Xbox teamed up with Chips Ahoy! and entrusted Premier Press and tripleclix to create the perfect look for the shooter video game: an ammunition box similar to the ones seen throughout the expansive sci-fi world of Gears.

Create an Experience with 3D Elements

The box is a turned-edge construction with a battle-worn look full of printed scratches and scuffs along the outside. It is further brought to life by a new design technique for Premier. This is one of the first custom boxes we designed with the idea to add wrapped 3D foam elements and crossover images onto the box itself. These added elements give the box an air of indestructibility, which is how a gamer must feel when playing the Gears of War franchise. 

Out-Of-This-World Packaging 

While the outside of the box is well-designed, the inside also has some special packaging features. 

This custom box – sent to members of the press, influencers, and high-profile gamers – has fun packaging inside that coincides with the futuristic theme of the project. All the items were vacuum-sealed in Mylar bags, giving the contents a more industrialized feel. The various items include a copy of the game Gears 5, two Gears of War books, bags of Chips Ahoy!, a can of Rockstar, and other goodies.  

It was a pleasure to work alongside Xbox, Chips Ahoy!, and tripleclix on this project, and we were glad to be a part of it!  

Urban Decay’s Naked eyeshadow palettes are one of the most popular makeup lines on the market and have been for a solid decade. There are reasons for that: variety and versatility. The palettes include eye-popping colors that give off a soft, natural look while also making sure to include more daring metallic colors that make a statement.  

The newest Naked palette from Urban Decay, Naked Honey, is filled with warm and rich colors like gold, bronze, amber, and brown. When Premier Press was given the opportunity to create a custom package for their new palette, we wanted to create something that was just as bold and beautiful as the eyeshadows that would be encased inside. 

Make it Pop with Specialty Techniques

A Premier concept from start to finish, this custom design was created specifically for beauty influencers. While the packaging may look more simplistic, it’s the design that makes it truly pop. The cover of the packaging makes use of a special technique of foiling the image first and then printing over the top. This allows the ink to take on a more reflective, illuminating quality that brings a burst of warm color to the cover and makes it stand out. 

100% Recyclable Packaging

On top of the beauty of the foil and ink, this packaging is also 100% recyclable. This is one of the first times we transitioned to cardboard inserts to display the products within, as opposed to foam. This gives the packaging a sleeker and more sophisticated look while still being environmentally safe and sustainable. Inside the cardboard inserts, the lucky influencers got a fun surprise; on top of the Naked Honey eyeshadow palette, they also received a tube of Urban Decay’s Eyeshadow Primer Potion, a must-have for any makeup artist who wants to look as fresh and polished as ever. 

Thanks again Urban Decay for letting us be a part of this fun project!  

Serra, Purveyor of Quality Drugs, has grown a strong following in their home base of Portland, Oregon; elevating the cannabis shopping experience to sophisticated new heights.

This year they were ready to enter the California market and wanted to seed their products and introduce their unique brand identity to dispensary owners across the state. Their idea was to send more than just a sample kit; it needed to be a playful, exciting, interactive experience. So they invited Premier Press to collaborate, and we put our heads together.

Serra offers a wide variety of different vehicles to deliver their THC, CBD, and combination products: flower, pre-rolls, vaporizers, gumdrops, chocolate bars, and caramels. Each product is identified with an icon representing the “feeling” it will deliver to the customer: happiness, relaxation, energy, creativity, focus, and relief.

And then there’s the feeling of excitement that comes with simply opening the box. At first, it seems to be an understated but elegant white package. It has a premium soft-touch surface and Serra’s logo printed in their custom PMS brand color, with smooth magnet closures. But it opens to reveal subtle hidden doors and drawers that reveal other doors and drawers, each with a surprise inside.

For some of the products, there was no existing photography, so our in-house studio worked with Serra’s creative team to create new images. We’re especially proud of our gumdrop shots; they look as if you could pick them right off the box and pop them in your mouth.

Designing and engineering the many facets of the kit was a challenge we welcomed, and it was a pleasure to work so closely with Serra.

California’s cannabis dispensary owners are in for a treat. And so are their customers-to-be.

Top media agencies and celebrities received a big (as in large and heavy) surprise for the NBA All-Star Weekend in Chicago this year: a pair of Jordan III shoes, an Xbox console, and two controllers – all in a dramatic presentation box created by Premier Press and Tripleclix.

Premier was tasked to create two different tier kits to show off the collaboration between Jordan and Xbox.

One was a fire-red turned-edge box with an Xbox logo on one side of the lid, and the Jordan logo on the other side. The lid has a subtle red-on-red iconic elephant print, and opens along diagonal-cut flaps to reveal the shoes, console, and Jordan-branded controllers nestled into a black foam interior.

Impressive in its own right. But wait until you hear about the Tier One celebrity kit.

The Tier One box is a custom red and black logo-imprinted wooden cube with a locking carrying handle on the top. When the handle is unlocked, the entire box lifts off to reveal a custom-constructed wooden fixture that holds the items. The console is tucked vertically inside a tower, with woven straps to pull it out. And on each side of the tower, one shoe and one console is held on with Velcro straps.

As always, it was an exciting challenge for our design and engineering teams, and an honor to have our work play a part in this important annual NBA event.

If you watched Super Bowl LIV, you were no doubt blown away by Missy Elliott and H.E.R.’s performance of their “Paint it Black” remix in a commercial introducing the new matte black Pepsi Zero Sugar can. And if you’re an influencer, you got a free sample of the Pepsi and the song, in a presentation kit designed and produced by Premier Press.

The new Pepsi Zero can hit the markets in January, 2020, so the Super Bowl was the perfect time to make a splash. Pepsi sponsored the half-time show, and asked media agency TracyLocke to help spread the buzz to influencers and the media.  

The result was a turned edge case that sits on “feet” and is wrapped in a soft-touch matte black, with the Pepsi logo printed in black gloss foil. Opening the top automatically activates a high-quality audio MP3 of the “Paint it Black” song, while a turntable spins with an imbedded Pepsi can, as Missy Elliott and H.E.R., all in black and holding Pepsi Zero cans, look on from a photo in the box lid.

A second level in the case has drawer with a matte black aluminum pull, and inside is a can of Pepsi Zero Sugar, a pair of headphones, and a speaker.

Premier designed and engineered the custom turntable using acrylic materials and a 3D-printed collar to connect the turntable to the motor underneath the box. We also built a protective shipping carton that floated the whole mechanism inside another box with reinforced corners to protect it.

Working with TracyLocke was a pleasure. To paraphrase the Pepsi commercial, everything about the project was “done right. That’s what we like.”

The Chiles Center arena is home to the University of Portland Pilots athletic teams, and host to countless celebrities and dignitaries in its 35-year history. And now, it also houses a VIP space where special donors can meet before games and at half-time. Premier Press designed, spec’d, fabricated and installed all the elements of the new Pilot Club.

The mastermind behind the design was Premier’s creative team, with fabrication and installation muscle from our project management team. The plan included recommendations for furniture, fixtures, benches, faux hedges, planters, lighting, and environmental graphics. We wanted to give the space a warm, welcoming, club-style feeling, with, of course, Pilot branding throughout.

Where there used to be fluorescent white lighting and pipe-and-drape walls, we softened the feel of the space with overhead drop-down lights, and installed a set wall with LEDs creating a wall wash in the Pilots’ signature purple. A main wall feature is a large Pilot anchor logo, also backlit with purple LEDs. The bar is built of plywood with color-core white laminate, and we included a debossed Pilot logo on the front.

The space is surrounded by a recreational running track in the Pilots’ signature purple color. Our challenge was to match Pilot Purple across all materials – the fabric banners, the paint for the wall graphics, and the vinyl for the bench seating. We took samples from the track surface in order to create custom paint for the walls and custom ink for the banners. As for the vinyl seats, we found an existing source that was a great match.

The new space not only looks great, it’s practical. The bar also serves as a storage area, and some of the set walls are on casters so they can be easily moved to access a storage area for tables and chairs.

The Pilot Club opened in 2020 for the basketball season, and we hope it will be used and enjoyed for many years to come.