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I started working as an associate packaging designer for Mattel's Hot Wheels™ team starting in late 2024. My first batch of projects were the Hot Wheels™ Red Line Club packages for 2025. The finished products were supervised and art directed by lead packaging designer Matt Gabe.
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My first design for Red Line Club was the second release of the Dodge Tradesman Van in root beer color with tiki style graphics. The idea was to incorporate tiki motifs into the box art. The jumping-off point for me was the graphic logo, which was 'tiki-fied' from the logo on the 1st release of the toy. Several different versions were made, and were later matched on to different rough sketches of the packaging box.
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A repeated tiki-style pattern was created, inspired by the graphics on the toy itself. Elements such as the Tradesman van, red-line wheels and the Hot Wheels logo were included.
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The final design was heavily based on rough v3, with pattern elements from v1 incorporated.
The Chevrolet Brookwood is the 2nd 2025 RLC design I worked on. Initially, as the car is indended as a pristine restomod of a 1960s classic built in Detroit, the packaging concept was to create something that while harckoning back to the good-ol' automotive golden age, feels contemporary and modern, which proved to be a bit of a challenge.
My first design concept focuses on the retro-modernist aspect, incorporating motifs from the famous art deco architecture of Detroit (such as the Guardian Building and the music hall) to create this mosaic on the top of the slip cover.
The second design, features the Ambassador Bridge, another famous Detroit landmark, with the name of the car as well as the chevy logo intergrated onto the architecture.
Design three pay homage to the checker factory where many GM models rolled off the assembly line back in the 60s. The now defunct factory wall peels off to present the shiny paintjob of the Chevy Brookwood (and an easter egg of lake Michigan).
The last one embraces the gritty street scenes of modern detroit, simillar to the famous Gymkhana shorts. In the backround is GM's Renaissance Center.
The design team later decided to pivot the packaging concept towards an homage to the classic Detroit modshops (Watson's Custom Kars, Alexandar Bro's Custom Shop, etc.), with the top side becoming a business card for the custom shop.
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I did an illustration for the side panel of the slip cover box, adds a small play value to the box by transforming it into a diecast-scale mini custom shop.
