KYCS

PACKAGING & MARKETING

ABOUT

Keep Your City Smiling is a company that curates corporate gift boxes and care packages featuring products sourced exclusively from small businesses across the country. At KYCS, they believe in the power of intentional gifting, which is why they handle all aspects of the process from design and curation to the physical creation of box wraps, packaging, and direct shipping. By supporting small businesses, KYCS not only offers unique and meaningful gifts but also contributes to the growth of local economies.

VENDOR CARDS

Each KYCS gift box includes vendor cards that showcase the small businesses featured in the box. These cards feature an image of the people behind the company, along with a brief description of their business and its values. This personal touch allows the recipient to feel connected to the small businesses and their stories. By putting a face to the products, KYCS helps build a unique connection between the recipient and the small business. This has resulted in increased visibility and customer base for the small businesses, which is an essential aspect of KYCS's mission to support and empower small businesses.

CUSTOM BOX WRAPS

To ensure each client's gift box aligns with their brand, we offer complete customization options for the box wraps. Clients have the flexibility to provide their own brand assets for us to incorporate into the design or they can leave the creative direction to our team. We strive to create box wraps that not only showcase the client's brand colors and logo but also incorporate fun illustrations and exciting patterns that tie into their company's theme.

Our priority is to maintain a balance between the brand's identity and incorporating playful elements that enhance the overall experience of receiving the gift box. By doing so, we can ensure that each gift box is unique, visually appealing, and perfectly tailored to the client's needs.

SOCIAL MEDIA

As a one-person social media team, my responsibilities at Keep Your City Smiling included creating and publishing content across various platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. I made sure to maintain a cohesive visual aesthetic across all channels, using vibrant colors and engaging imagery to showcase our gift boxes and highlight the small businesses we work with.

One way we promoted our partners was through Instagram highlights, organized by city, where users could easily discover and follow the businesses we work with. We also tagged our partners in these posts and included photos of their products to grab users' attention. By featuring our small business partners in our social media content, we aimed to create a community-driven platform that supports local businesses and encourages intentional gifting.

CITY BOXES

Our city boxes were curated to showcase products from small businesses based in each specific city. For instance, in our Seattle box, we featured vendors such as Seattle Chocolate. To reflect the artisanal and high-quality nature of the products inside, we designed the boxes to be bold and colorful with minimal typography. On the sides of the boxes, we included vector illustrations of that particular city's skyline.

By highlighting small businesses unique to each city, we aimed to promote local economies and connect gift-givers with meaningful, locally-sourced products.

MARKETING DECKS

To attract clients, we primarily pitched to them instead of waiting for them to approach us. Our pitch decks were designed to convey our company's purpose and how we could help our clients support small businesses across the country. The main objective of our decks was to showcase that we were not just an ordinary gift box company, but rather we had a purpose behind our gifting, and the products in each box were of high quality and handmade.

CURATED BOXES

To maintain a consistent brand image, we applied the same box wrap design and layout for our curated care packages, but with unique color variations. As our inventory of small business products constantly changed, we needed a user-friendly template mockup that allowed us to easily swap out products. To achieve this, I sourced each product photo from the vendor's website, then used Photoshop to isolate, distort, rotate, and resize them to fit within a single cohesive layout.

HOLIDAY BOXES

Our holiday box collection featured unique and festive gift wrap designs that perfectly matched the theme of each box. For example, our Winter Wonderland box featured a beautiful white wrap with elegant black and gold wintery illustrations. Inside the box, we carefully curated a selection of wintery white items, such as powdered chocolate covered almonds, a white mug, creamy white soap, and more. Our pre-designed gift wrap options made it incredibly easy for clients to choose a theme and send us their addresses, requiring minimal effort on their end. However, for clients who wanted to add a personalized touch, we also offered the option to incorporate their own logo into the fun gift wrap design. For example, the light blue snowflake wrap included the Amazon logo within the pattern, creating a festive yet branded look.