CHOUX is a luxury taffy brand designed to make indulgence social. Blending elevated aesthetics with playful energy, CHOUX transforms taffy from a simple confection into an experience meant to be shared, unwrapped, filmed, and talked about. Created for a trend-forward generation, the brand strikes a balance between playful and premium, luxurious without taking itself too seriously.
To understand who CHOUX was designed for, we developed personas representing our target audience. These personas helped us identify their lifestyles, values, purchasing behaviors, and relationship with social experiences. By grounding our design decisions in these insights, we could create a brand that felt both aspirational and approachable.
Our mood board was used to explore what CHOUX should look, feel, and communicate. We gathered references for color, materials, and social experiences, focusing on the balance between luxury and playfulness. These references helped us narrow down a direction that felt bold, tactile, and highly shareable while avoiding the traditional visual language of confectionery brands.
Goals:
Create a novel, concise unboxing experience using visually compelling graphics and fully paper‑based, sustainable materials
Make the packaging inherently “shareable” and on-trend so recipients feel excited to photograph, post, and show off both the package and the contents
Objectives:
Design a paper-based packaging system that encourages playful interaction between user and confection
Promote sharing and collaboration through package features and user‑driven engagement moments
Deliver a premium, memorable experience that aligns with modern trends
Final PR Box
The PR box holds three retail boxes and features a rip-away paper reveal for a playful, interactive opening experience. Designed to make the unboxing feel like an event, the packaging encourages discovery, interaction, and sharing.
Early Form Exploration
We used printer paper and rudimentary die lines to explore our retail packaging form.
Final Retail Box
A taffy sleeve and click-to-close lid create a satisfying opening experience, while experiential graphics bring CHOUX’s playful personality to life across the package.
Early Die Lines
Early sketches that informed the design
Drawn by Malayna Cherbaka
Initial Prototypes: Retail & PR
Initial Die Lines - Retail
Initial Die Lines - PR
Drop Testing
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Drop Testing *
Closure Performance
After concluding our drop testing, we noticed issues regarding the closure mechanism. The current design of the lid is insecure and frequently pops open upon impact.
Failure Points
There were no extreme failure points. The corners at the very top edge of the lid dented slightly at the hinge.
Improvements?
Suggested improvements consist of a wrap-around lid covering the front face of the box, that is opened with a perforated tear line. The lid hinges up to reveal the inner packaging for the candy that includes a tear away piece that creates a slot for the packaged candy to be pulled out. The front face will have a lip for the lid to be closed.
Structural development and exploration
Adding a wrap-around sleeve solved the issue with the closure method while on the sleeves, but produced issues once the perforation was torn away. The slot for the tab refused to stay closed, and created a gap between the upper lid and the box structure.
Budget Considerations
We began with a series of three die lines for both retail and PR
Final Die Lines - Retail
Combining two of the die lines meant we could reduce overall budget and create a cheaper and more efficient build process
Final Details: PR
Hinged Lid Closure
Experiential graphics:
Mouth Inside branding
Rip-Away reveal
Final Details: Retail
Hinged Lid Closure
Snap closure with haptic feedback
Experiential graphics:
Taffy comes out of mouth
Perforated inside lid to access the taffy
Vellum paper sleeve of taffy
Final design pivoted to a paper sleeve with CHOUX graphics
Graphic Development: Phase 1
Final Brand Language
Final Die Lines with Graphics: Retail
Final Die Lines with Graphics: PR
Retail in Context
Something to CHOUX on
CHOUX transforms taffy from a simple confection into a social experience. The final packaging combines expressive graphics with tactile interactions to create moments of discovery, play, and sharing. Together, the retail and PR packaging establish a cohesive brand experience that feels elevated, unexpected, and distinctly CHOUX.