Long Tail Mixers is an award winning British brand that focuses on mixers for dark spirits and is the brainchild of two lifelong friends who both share a passion for ‘the darker side of spirits’. Back in August 2020, co-founder Alex Jolliet got in touch with Saxon Packaging to produce three luxury gift packaging solutions, after being referred by existing clients, El Rayo Tequila.
Each gift box needed to house a branded highball glass, as well as two featured 50 ml bottles of either tequila, rum or whisky and two (200 ml) Long Tail Mixers combinations. Alex also wanted a die cut relief of the ‘Long Tail Mongoose’ (a staple of the branding), as a window on each of the boxes.
Ai-Lien Lee, lead designer at Saxon Packaging, quickly got to work in putting together the designs. The structural packaging designs for the three gift boxes were derived from the same FEFCO 0427 style. These would be coupled later on with differentiating artworks further along the design process.
‘Using existing imagery and collateral from Long Tail Mixers branded material, I was able to replicate the silhouette of the ‘Mongoose’ design onto the cutter guide for the packaging designs. It was a challenging process but I am very pleased with the end result,’ said Ai-Lien.
Alex Jolliet wanted to achieve a most premium and high quality look and feel with his packaging. Therefore, it was decided that these packs were to be printed using litho printing. And by way of keeping the manufacturing process as sustainable as possible, Long Tail Mixers and Saxon Packaging agreed that opting for a three-way split print would be the most optimal solution for printing and die cutting the gift packs.
Split printing is the method of printing multiple artworks using the same individual sheet of corrugated board. Instead of printing to one artwork per sheet, it is possible to print multiple forms/variations of the packaging on the same sheet. This helps to reduce the amount of raw material that is required for the process. Split printing can also help to minimise the amount of material waste and can aid better sustainability goals.
To give these gift packs the extra touch, each of the packaging solutions were given the luxury embellishment of a gloss finish. The amalgamation of the print processes and the print finish resulted in a most premium and sophisticated overall look.
With an initial order of 3000 units, the gift packs have been very well received and are being enjoyed by Long Tail Mixers’ customers.
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Long tail Mixers - https://longtailmixers.com
Saxon Packaging - https://www.saxonpackaging.co.uk