Monroe Art Sponge

Design: Lesha Limonov
Location: Belarus
Project Type: Produced
Client: Shuba Gift Factory
Director: Mikhail Ananich
Product Launch Location: Europe
Packaging Contents: Art Sponge
Packaging Substrate / Materials: Paper
Printing Process: Digital printing

About the brand
Shuba Gift Factory. The company is engaged in the development and production of creative designer gifts. The main direction of souvenir products is associated with the use, processing, of popular world art masterpieces. Based on existing art works, the company creates new images and meanings in design. Due to interesting design solutions, familiar household items acquire new value. Art objects at your home!

Shuba collaborates with various world museums: Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam), Louvre Abu Dhabi, National Art Museum of Belarus (Minsk) and others.

The “Masterpieces never sleep!” project (sleep masks with the eyes of the heroes of art works) has become the company’s visit card. In 2017-18, the project became widely known and collected many World Awards.

The audience
Consumers of Shuba products are people associated with art, lovers of modern and classical art, pop art and all those who appreciate unusual interesting things, creative gifts, non-standard solutions and high-quality products.

Task
To develop packaging for colored shower sponges.

The solution of the problem
Someone sings in the bathroom, and someone comes up with new ideas there! We began to think what could be in common between a simple sponge and a masterpiece of art? We looked through famous masterpieces in search of answers to the task. And Eureka!

We were inspired by the color portraits of Marilyn Monroe by Andy Warhol. The brightly colored sponges turned out to be very similar to Marilyn’s hairstyles.

We decided to approach the problem with humor and turned the hair of the famous Marilyn Monroe into a shower sponge! We have developed a package with cutting in place of the hair of a female portrait. We put a sponge in the box and got a 3D effect. “Hair” protrudes from the plane and can be touched! It turned out to revive the portraits and create an unusual design for a simple hygiene item.

The packaging is made of micro corrugated cardboard. Full color printing and pleasant matte lamination were used on one side. We tried in every way to create the most pleasant effect when interacting with the packaging. There are many small details in design that grab attention and generate both visual and tactile interest.

The idea scales well. There are many portraits of lush hair. It is possible to create many SKU products for souvenir shops in various museums around the world. For example, a self-portrait by Rembrandt or a рortrait of Alida Christina Assink (Jan Adam Kruseman).

The main places of sale: shops in museums, souvenir shops, shuba shop.

Thanks to packaging, the everyday popular hygiene item has become part of pop art culture!

Results
The project turned out with humor and the packaging attracted a lot of attention. There were a lot of joyful comments and a desire to buy a product at the stage of publishing the project concept in the media.

Thanks to packaging, the everyday popular hygiene item has become a part of pop-art culture! The result is a series of colored Monroe sponges. The product is with a bright emotional color, it stands out on the shelf from other hygiene products in this segment.

We made a package that you don’t want to throw away. You can put a scarf, candys, lanterns, golden tinsel in an empty box and you will get many other Monroe hairstyles, different in texture and mood.

Please your loved ones with interesting gifts, give emotions, share new impressions.

With love,
Shuba Gift Factory