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Bureau of Betterment
in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Fifty-Four Forty

The 54 – 40 pack­ag­ing project was a col­lab­o­ra­tion between two sole pro­pri­etors: Mette Hornung Rankin of the Bureau of Betterment and Greg Jones of Fifty-Four Forty. Greg had the idea to cre­ate a set of magnetic-backed US states made out of laser cut wood that show the topog­ra­phy of America. 

The pack­ag­ing struc­ture was inspired by the jig used to assem­ble each state. A piece of char­coal col­ored chip­board is sand­wiched between lay­ers of thick card­board that mimic the topo­graphic nature of the prod­uct and show off the rich birch color. The front of the pack­ag­ing is laser cut with the pat­tern of sur­round­ing states while prod­uct infor­ma­tion is shown on the back panel. The prod­uct is eas­ily nes­tled into its’ own shape with a small fin­ger hole on the back to help pop it out for use. The pack­ag­ing dou­bles as a free-standing dis­play for the state.

To high­light each state’s unique attrib­utes, a small pam­phlet with state facts was cre­ated with images and notable geo­graphic land­marks. The pam­phlet folds in 3 each way and slides into a recessed slit on the back side of the pack­ag­ing struc­ture, mak­ing the prod­uct and pack­ag­ing a fully inte­grated solution.