Saturday, May 5, 2012

Package & Display Design for Bed Bug Pesticide

These bed bugs are
nasty little suckers
Remember that old saying "Don't let the bed bugs bite"? That was a reality for our parents' and grandparents' genrations. That changed when pesticides like DDT were used to devastating effect in the 1940s to practically wipe out bed bugs infestations. Decades later DDT was determined to be environmentally and medically dangerous and taken off the market. It is an unpleasant fact that bed bugs (that were once a thing of past) are now coming back with a vengeance in hotels, motels and even theaters.

My client, BugBand, manufacturers natural insect repellent products that deter insects by emitting Geraniol vapors. Geraniol contains a naturally derived extract from Geranium flowers which people have been using for hundreds of years in window boxes to keep insects out of their homes.

These packages are not shown to scale. The one of the left is only a small 3 oz. travel size bottle.
Last year, BugBand introduced their first pesticide aimed directly at bed bugs. Bed Bugs No More! uses a strong concentration of Geraniol to kill bed bug eggs, larvae, nymphs and adult bed bugs. Geraniol dissolves the exoskeleton of the bedbugs and they cannot become immune to the effects. This is different from the nerve agent pesticides that are usually used, and only affect adults insects with developed nervous systems. Bed Bugs No More! is not toxic and safe for humans. This is my layman's understanding of complicated chemical processes and biology. More information will soon be on the BugBand web site.

Long story short, I got to design the Bed Bugs No More! packages, two being your standard pump bottle and the other, a small travel size package that uses heat shrink technology to adhere the label to the bottle. In this case, labels are printed as circular plastic sleeves that shrink when heat is applied to them making a colorful and tamper-resistant package. I also designed the displays coming to a store near you.