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!  

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 Pack” is a new apparel and footwear collection from adidas, created to blur the distinction between what we wear at home, in the street, and on the field of play. To design their influencer packaging, they turned to Hovers Over Water, a Portland-based concept, brand design, and graphics studio @hovers_over_water.And to engineer their vision, Hovers Over Water turned to Premier. The result is a dynamic unboxing experience that got the attention of a lot of eyeballs – not only from athletes in the MLB, NBA, NFL, and NHL, but also from two respected packaging design websites.

With The Pack from adidas, “There are no boundaries at the intersection of sport and culture; the lines are constantly shifting.”

In a flash of inspiration, Hovers Over Water saw this idea as a visual event, a graphic narrative: the packaging itself would shift, blur, and transform as the recipient opened it.

A great concept is one thing. How to make it work is another. They came to Premier for our engineering expertise and our experience with lenticular printing, and we went to work. Using blank prototypes, we figured out how to lay out the artwork on the different layers, laser-cut lines out of the material, and print black areas on a clear substrate for the sleeve. We then tested the fit and functionality, making sure that when the box was pulled out, it would interact with the clear areas on the sleeve, creating an animated flickering effect.

Once that was perfected, we created the die lines and a template to place the artwork. Then we elevated the idea even further, using iridescent foil and a black matte premium finish to print the graphics, so that the colors and dimensionality would change as they reflected light from different angles.

The effect was so nice, we used it twice – inside the box is an information card with a slide-out sleeve that echoes the animation of the outside package.

Another engineering challenge was to size the box correctly to accommodate two hoodies, a long-sleeved shirt, and a pair of UltraBoost sneakers to fit the influencer with the largest shoe size. And finally, we came up with a way to ensure that the contents would arrive in good shape. We nested the seeding kit within a larger cardboard box with foam inside to keep it in position and safe from the edges of the exterior box, and wrapped it all in a poly bag.

Christopher DeGaetano, Creative Director at Hovers Over Water says, “Only Premier would have been able to see this ambitious project through to the end. And their idea for the outside protective packaging was a huge added benefit.” 

We thank adidas and Hovers Over Water for including us in this project and are proud to announce that it is featured on the “Packaging of the World” and the “Dieline”  websites, both prestigious platforms celebrating the packaging design community.

Kita is a high-end real estate developer. How high-end? Let’s just say that if you purchase the $25 million condo, they’ll throw in a Rolls Royce. The company aims to sell their properties before they’ve even broken ground, using a “look book” to showcase all their premium materials and designs. Needless to say, the book has to be a work of art. It is; it has a debossed linen cover, Swiss-bound, with 108 pages of photography using three different paper stocks: 80# Via Carnival Felt, 100# Sterling Matte Text, and 100# Via Vellum warm white.

Premier’s role in this major project earned us the “Best of Binding, Case” at the 2019 Pacific Printing Industries Association Printrocks! competition. As the output channel, our challenge was this: the book was a reprint of one that had been printed in Japan using a special gray Italian linen for the cover, but the tight timeline prevented sourcing the same material. Instead, we started with a Verona 601 white printable linen, and used the sophisticated software on our IS29 digital press to exactly emulate the original gray with our four-color process. What’s more, the book comes in a set of three, each in a different language, so we had to do three different production runs, and ensure that the color matched perfectly across each of the runs. 

Most design agencies are so busy promoting their own clients that they neglect to promote themselves. Not so for Brave New Day. With the help of Premier, they put in the overtime to create a beautiful 28-page booklet, and won “Best of Single Promotional Self-mailer” at the 2019 Pacific Printing Industries Association Printrocks! competition.

We printed the self-mailer on our Komori IS29, using Superfine Eggshell Text Forest Stewardship Council certified stock, with solid ink coverage that made the photos really pop. The horizontal layout is an imposing 10” x 14”, with foil stamping on the cover, and a zip strip closure. A standout feature is the solid vibrant turquoise colored three-quarter sheets that divide the booklet into sections, showing off the agency’s high-end branding and design projects.
 

To launch Constellation Brands’ new tequila brand, Mi Campo hired world-class design firm Sandstrom Partners to create a poster and brochure that would intoxicate even the most jaded influencer.

The poster is a creative marvel, and a technical one, too. The die-cut design was so detailed, it would have been impossible to achieve the desired quality by hand or with steel-rule equipment. Enter Premier. We took the vector artwork, applied it to a digital file, and fed it into our wide-format Zund rotary cutter. Voila! But there’s more: To hold up to the intricate cuts, the poster had to be printed on 24-point heavy card stock. Most presses can only take up to 16-point stock. But Premier’s four-color IS29 digital press handled it with ease.

The 64-page brochure was no less a triumph. We used two different inks and two different printer set-ups: four-color process UV ink to make sure the color photography held out and popped on the uncoated paper, and metallic gold ink to enhance the sheen. The cover was a coated sheet with gate folds on both the front and the back. And for the final touch of elegance and subtlety, Premier account director Justin Foeller suggested black saddle-stitch wire (instead of a standard silver staple) for the spine of the brochure. 

It was so popular with the influencers, Mi Campo asked us to do a second printing. And it was big hit at the 2019 Pacific Printing Industries Association Printrocks! competition, too, winning “Best of Posters, Art Prints, and Other Art Reproductions.”

This project was a classic collaboration with our client Univox Media and his go-to designer Lia Miternique. Univox (“one voice”) provides a unique service to media buyers, by consolidating audio, video, and digital options for advertisers to reach their target audiences. They wanted an entire identity and collateral package to showcase and differentiate their offerings, and brought their concept to Premier for recommendations of substrates and production processes.

Together we chose a newly released stipple-finish paper from Neenah for the presentation folder, which was designed as an oversized tri-fold, three-pocket folder, fastened with a Velcro dot. The covers and pockets are printed with a double-hit of spot gloss UV varnish. It’s also foil-stamped in two colors on our Brausse foil stamping machine and die-cut on our Heidelberg letterpress machines. Brochures for each of their three divisions were printed on our six-color UV press finished with soft-touch coating and silver metallic foil.

In other words, we pulled out all the stops — and won “Best of Presentation Folders/Portfolios and Binders” at the 2019 Pacific Printing Industries Association Printrocks! competition.

When Lady Gaga calls, you answer. Her new beauty company, Haus Laboratories, had seen our work, loved it, and invited us to apply our design, engineering, and problem-solving skills to create a “haus” to present her “self-expression tools” to influencers. We gladly accepted.

Lady Gaga’s dream project had been eagerly anticipated in the beauty world, and on September 17^th, 500 selected influencers were finally able to experience the products for themselves. Haus Laboratories collaborated with Premier to create an imposing pyramid-shaped kit to launch the brand.

Our goal was to express her philosophy of experiencing “self-acceptance through beauty.” The highlight of the kit design is a large laser-cut acrylic sheet that works as an actual mirror; an homage to seeing oneself and reflecting on one’s own empowerment. The mirror sits atop a box made of a sturdy chipboard with a turned edge, wrapped with matte laminated paper. Inside, a tray holds six dramatic shades each of lip gloss, eyeliner, and shimmer nested into a layer of eco-foam. The tray is revealed under a chrome-laminated four-color die-cut sleeve, printed with Lady Gaga’s brand statement and a luminous photo of her.

The technical challenges were threefold: to pack the uniquely shaped box so that it would arrive undamaged, to keep costs under control, and above all, to make the packaging fully curbside recyclable. Challenges accepted, challenges met.

Thanks to the team at Haus Labs for sharing our commitment to environmental responsibility, and for their confidence in our ability to faithfully reflect their vision.

If you don’t have a chance to visit an Ann Sacks Tile showroom, to see and touch their exquisite hand-crafted designer tiles, their brand book serves to recreate the experience. Working with their design agency, CO Projects, Premier has created a tactile work of art in itself, with photography that faithfully captures the colors and luminosity of the products.

Premier Press has produced several ANN SACKS brand books, and last year we made the transition to uncoated stock; while still achieving excellent color holdout. For this edition’s cover, we used antique white foil on white stock for a clean, brilliant look.  

ANN SACKS wanted to make a few quick color corrections to accommodate for the uncoated substrates as they can be challenging. And this year, due to limited time, we were able to use our in-house services to meet the press schedule. The gurus in our new color correction/retouching studio have the expertise – and advantage; they know all the specifications of the presses, the paper, and the inks that would be used in printing. So they were able to tweak the 20 images quickly, perfectly.

Our account director, Justin Foeller, who had overseen the ANN SACKS printing projects in years before,  said this: “I was so proud to be able to offer my client the added value of color correction. Out of 20 images, only one needed to go back to be retouched. These guys are rock stars!” 

Thanks to CO Projects and ANN SACKS for allowing us to enhance the success of their beautiful brand book.