Left to right: Seth Quillin, national creative director; Angi Thorp, senior account executive; Frank Grimaldi, v.p. creative services; Rick Murphy, creative director; Keith Beckelheimer, senior designer; Phil Urso, senior designer.

In physics, gravity is defined as "the force of attraction between all masses in the universe." In business and at Gravity, Be Everywhere, this force of attraction plays itself out very fundamentally and successfully in the package design sphere. Gravity is a brand consultancy firm with three studios--Chicago, Columbus, Cincinnati.

"At our core we have an extremely high knowledge base in graphic packaging production," offers Seth Quillin, Gravity's national creative director, "and we wrap this with excellent brand architecture and strategy and the print pull-through absolutely needed to get a job done well." Gravity was launched in 2003 when Mr. Quillin developed an aggressive build-out of strategy and creative associates for CoachHouse, the graphic production division within Gravity's 85-year-old parent company, Phototype.

So not only do clients served by Gravity get intelligent, well-considered creative services to promote their market interests, they get sound technology-driven craft that enables alluring and functional package design. "Our approach allows brand managers to focus on core values," Quillin elaborates. He explains that this is better becoming mired in the question: "Is my design going to look good when it hits the shelf?"

Gravity's service offerings mean that should a client have multiple design partners and several printers and converters it works with, "we will help to track and document all production and compliance processes connected to the work," says Quillin. To elicit the essential communication, direction, and input required from clients to optimize the package design process, Gravity probes and probes. "We try up front to get at the root of what our clients want," Quillin explains. In particular, he says, clients are asked to convey what they want to achieve from numerous perspectives including conceptual, strategic, and graphic support. "We make clients partners in the entire decision-making process," he adds.

Quillin describes the team assembled to participate in this year's Package Design Makeover Challenge as diverse, adding, "We try to build our teams around people who are great talents and extremely creative--and who also understand strategy and how it supports creative execution. While we list aesthetics high on our list of priorities, we never forget that moving a product is paramount."