Cycle Care

Derrick Lin

Global

Design: Laura Schweiger
Project Type: Student Project
School: RMIT
Course: Masters of Communication Design
Tutor: Brad Haylock
Photographer: Dennis Grauel
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Packaging Contents: Menstrual Products
Printing Process: Digital Printing

Cycle care is an everyday vision for menstrual products that do their job and make us feel okay, no matter who we are. It explores how menstrual products are significant in affirming and constructing a certain ideology of womanhood and how the visual language surrounding us can impact our perception and definition of a society’s values. The final outcome wrestles with challenges such as the pursuit of gender-neutrality in design, the non-traditional construction of a brand identity, as well as questions about the ethical responsibility of designers and the consequences of our work.

Some of the works and writings studied for the project include various projects by Kenya Hara, Dieter Rams, Kris Sowersby, ‘The World as design’ by Otl Aicher and ‘The Super Normal Philosophy’ by Jasper Morrison and Naoto Fukasawa.

The packaging design is strongly informed by the tactility of the materials: the smoothness of the tracing paper and roughness of the white uncoated stock. The choice of tracing paper as packaging material befits the brand’s values of transparency and inclusiveness, whilst combining materials with different tactile surfaces led to a compelling contrast. I was fascinated by the idea of creating an intriguing experience through materials rather than graphic elements.

This work was undertaken as the Professional Research Project for the Masters of Communication Design program at RMIT.

What’s Unique?
Cycle Care is a gender-neutral approach to design packaging for menstrual products.