Through our 13 years as a branding and product development firm we have worked on some unusual projects on both products and brand packaging. It has been a strange and sometimes wonderful trip, some projects we sooner forget than remember. Take a look.

 

The Kneeler

This concept was brought to us by a former boss of mine. He had a friend that needed help developing branding for a product.  It was a small portable foam pad with its own convenient carry case that would be used to kneel on in church. They needed a package and a corporate name for religious products. After one our most memorable namestorms, we came up with Spiritually Linked for the corporate name and the tag line “Comfortably closer to God”. I personally thought this was particularly clever. For the package we needed to show someone using the “Kneeler” in church. It was decided that I was the perfect model for the package since it would only be the back of my head showing. The day of the shoot I wore what I thought was dressy for today’s “casual” masses, khakis and a dress shirt. We shot it at Fuzion and dropped it into a stock image as the budget did not permit a shoot in an actual church. After reviewing our initial layout, the client decided I did not look dressed up enough for church and requested a reshoot with me wearing dress slacks. He obviously had not been to Saturday night Mass of recent. Reshot, the kneeler was launched. We prayed it would be a success!

 

Junk In My Trunk

This was game that never saw the light of day and this company has since been bought out by a larger company and no longer exists. The game involved the player wearing a big pink plastic butt on their butt, it had self-stick surface so you could pick up various illustrated boards of junk “apple core, old shoe” etc. and shake it off onto a mat illustration of a trunk, hence “Junk in My Trunk”. When shown to the buyer at Target, they felt it was decidedly vulgar and passed. Junk In My Trunk infamously did not move forward but we do have a handsome package mock-up on display at Fuzion.

 

Adult Toy (not related to Junk In My Trunk)

We traveled to NYC to meet with the client. Apparently, he was a big player in the porn & adult toy industry. He picked us up in his Mercedes which was stocked with some of the most explicit porn magazines we had ever seen. At our steak house lunch, he discussed his idea for an adult vibrating product that would look like a pen. We will leave it at that. Needless to say, Fuzion passed on this unique product development opportunity. I’m not sure how that would have looked on our website.

 

Beer Darts

Beer and Darts, what could go wrong? This game is definitely not for the faint of heart or for those with poor aim. I’m sure this daringly stupid game has been played at more than one drunken frat party. The rules of the game are simple 2 opponents sit opposite from each other maybe 10 or 12 feet apart and you put an unopened beer can between your preferably bare feet and take turns throwing darts at each other with the goal of hitting the beer can. If you were a good shot and hit the beer can, the other player had to drink the now gushing beer. If you were a bad shot, well you can google this and see darts sticking out of various appendages including legs, feet etc…use your imagination. We created a base so your beer – heaven forbid, would not fall over. Welcome to the “never moved forward hall of fame”.

 

Go-Girlz

We worked on product development as well as branding and naming of the line. These dolls were to be the antithesis of Barbie. They were to be dolls that would let little girls imagine being astronauts, explorers, scientists etc. without having a 13” waist or looking stylish. The product went pretty smoothly but the name was a bit more difficult. The client wanted a name that would exude action and excitement and after a namestorm we narrowed it down to our favorite “Go Girlz”. After a quick google search and a more professional search on TESS the governments “Trademark Electric Search System”, success! Go-Girlz seemed clear, no TM. We were ready to present!  Fortunately, someone tried it as a URL and surprise, it turns out it was a porn site. How embarrassing. Good rule of thumb when clearing names, just because it has not been trademarked doesn’t mean someone isn’t using it. I don’t remember what the final name was or if the doll every saw the light of day but the name Go-Girlz never did.

I hope you enjoyed Fuzion’s trip down “Stranger Things” memory lane. Have a strange thing or great idea you need help developing?

Reach out to us at info@fuziondesign.com