Caitie McCabe
Who printed it? Created the box
The box was printed by Packlane, a custom packaging company based in California.
Who designed it?
Because the project was so multi-faceted; I collaborated with several, wonderfully talented— creatives. They did an incredible job of bringing my vision to life; making a fun, cohesive project with an “All-American” feel.
Packaging Design: Ryan Bolhman
Rebrand Design: Caitlyn Dailey, Erika Saraniero, Matt Conte, Emily Menton, Augie Viera, Vincent Maltese, Tom Finnerty
Video Production: Laura Laperche http://goodandstickycontent.com
Copy: Hilary Giorgi, Matt Conte, Emily Menton
Website Design: Heidi Volpe
Who inspected the box?
A crew or 35 amazing volunteers (fueled mainly by pizza and beer) who helped throughout all of what we called “Rocket Weekend.” Each member of the team helped to pack and inspect the boxes. They even had their own personalized “inspected by” stickers! You can check out the behind-the-scenes video to get a pretty good idea of how hard everyone was working, AND how much fun we all had putting this together: You can also meet the whole rocket team here:
I was excited – and extremely fortunate – to work with Peter Dennen on this project, who I’ve been working with for the past three years. He also helped on the site redesign: overhauling the internal promo, the leave-behind pieces, and the overall vision of my brand.
How many did you make?
All together, we assembled 250 boxes and more than 400 rockets. Each rocket was hand painted and constructed by members of the team. Frankly, I’m flabbergasted that these people still talk to me!
How many times a year do you send out promos?
Because these large-scale promotions – like the Rocket Box – take an astounding amount of collaboration and effort, I only do them about once a year. I’ll send smaller promos, mailers, and email posters more frequently; but these big projects require a lot more attention. It’s easily six months of planning, designing, shooting, and assembly. And they’re always a project I take great pride in, so getting it just right is super important.
The interactive element to this box added some extra production time. We filmed a full safety and instructional video for the working rockets included, as well as made the box capable of becoming its very own launch-pad.
How did this project come about?
At the start of 2016, it was time to re-launch my brand. I created a new logo, figured out new and exciting ways to show off all these samples of my work, and completely overhauled my website. I was pumped. I’m not one to do ANYTHING quietly, I found myself searching for the perfect way to announce all of these new and exciting business developments. That’s when serendipity took over.
Randomly – as one often does – I struck up a conversation with a man who accidentally bought $20,000 worth of model rockets. After the confusion – and thousands of questions – the lightbulb went off. I had begun the six month process of developing the most insane promo piece I’d ever done.
I’m NOT a rocket scientist – just a girl with a head full of ideas and several hundred explosive devices – it took a bit of help to fully “launch” Rocket Boxes. Luckily, I’m surrounded by people who were more than willing to come by in their free time to help build rockets, set up launch pads, assemble boxes, and hammer out those tiny details that made these promo pieces work. Whenever I had an idea – however crazy – my amazing team was right there to make it possible.
What we ended up with were 250 beautiful boxes, an incredibly well designed physical mailer, a poster, scripted and behind-the-scenes videos, a new website that I’m insanely proud of, and some AMAZING memories.
Of course; since I sent hundreds of rockets through U.S. mail, there’s an itsy-bitsy chance I’m now on a government watch list. But, honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way.