The Rivet Brand Connects With the Mires Design Firm for More Riveting Packages

The Mires design team strengthened the Rivet brand and extended its reach by implementing a number of effective design strategies.

Rivet International makes quality attachment systems for personal mobile devices and accessories. A typical "attachment system" would be a chain or cord with a clip that keeps a cell phone securely attached to the user's clothing. When Rivet realized its packaging was not working hard enough and needed refreshing, they turned to Mires, a prominent San Diego brand design firm.

Rivet sees their products as sophisticated, sleek, and steely designs that are defining a new category by connecting technology—in its many modern forms—to a person's lifestyle. For years, Rivet products generated rave reviews from cool "core" customers, but that was no longer sufficient.

Rivet challenged the Mires design team to reposition Rivet's products to attract a wider general public and appeal more to mass-market retailers without weakening the Rivet brand's connection with existing fans. The designers had to do all that, as well as describe the company's revolutionary product line, within the borders of a smaller package footprint.

Simplifying the messages

The Mires firm is led by two principals/creative directors, Scott Mires and John Ball. The firm saw that one of the biggest challenges would be presenting the Rivet products in a smaller space, as the rectangular package was being replaced with a tall oval package. "As today's high-tech products and accessories become smaller, so does their packaging," Mires explains. "In response to this trend, we have to tell increasingly complicated stories in less space. It requires us to communicate more through graphics and imagery. As they say, a picture says a thousand words."

Some retail consumers found the previous Rivet packaging confusing, intimidating, and verbose. Mires' new packaging presents Rivet's products in a smart, simple, and intelligent way. By simplifying product descriptions and utilizing straightforward instructional diagrams with minimal text, Mires was able to convey Rivet's message more effectively and show that using Rivet "is as easy as 1-2-3."

Mires played up the premium precision-designed look and engineering of Rivet's products. "Quality is one of Rivet's most important characteristics," explains Mires. "It was buried before, but by adding the descriptor 'Quality alloy & stainless steel' we saw an opportunity to convey a valuable message to consumers: Buy Rivet products with confidence and enjoy them for years to come."

Mires' use of a "thought bubble" in the new packaging creates a metaphor of what the device can do—and wants to do—for users. It literally answers the all-important consumer question: "What is Rivet and how do I use it?" Mires also made significant improvements on the legibility of Rivet's logo, with a modern proprietary typeface and a bold red marker. The new Rivet brand presentation bridges the gap between the action sport associations of early Rivet fans and fashion-conscious aspirations new Rivet users.

Wide-ranging appeal

The new goal was to make the products appeal to a wide range of people from all walks of life while balancing the brand look and feel to avoid coming across as too mainstream or corporate. Mires added dynamic full-color lifestyle photos into the package layouts to showcase Rivet's brand personality traits—cool, core, and versatile. The images show ethnically diverse, attractive people using Rivet products while chatting on a cell phone, listening to an iPod, or snapping pictures with a camera. They're "fashionable, hip, passionate and original—just like Rivet," Mires says. "They walk the walk, talk the talk. Most importantly, Rivet connects with their lives."

Mires streamlined the product names in the product line to reflect Rivet's three main product categories—Mobile Wear, Music Wear, and Pix Wear. They created consistent product naming guidelines for existing and future product lines, following three basic rules: 1) Keep it short, one syllable if possible; 2) Use action verbs; and 3) Choose a name that speaks to a product's application, styling, or key component. For example, "SUPER TREKER" evolved into simply "TREK."

A promise statement and tag line can be a brand's lifelong legacy. Mires created one clear interchangeable phrase that says what Rivet is and what it does. In the case of Kingpin, it is: "Attach your phone to your life." In the other products in the line, "phone" would be replaced by "iPod," "camera," etc. "This brand promise is the largest legitimate claim Rivet can make, so we made sure to highlight it on all of the new packaging," Mires stresses.

The new Rivet packages were rolled out in late 2005, and Raleigh Wilson, president and CEO of Rivet, is quite pleased. "Mires differentiated our products from the competition and presented them to the public in a more visible and approachable way," Wilson says. "Most importantly, they positioned Rivet as a cool, cutting-edge brand. The feedback so far has been outstanding."