Zunda Design Group

South Norwalk, Connecticut • www.zundagroup.com

The Zunda Group's new design for Citrus Magic communicates the promise of the brand—both visually and ergonomically—for being an environmentally friendly, all-natural, citrus-based line of household products. The soft organic shapes of the newly designed containers are very reminiscent of the citrus fruit from where Citrus Magic gets its ingredients and cleaning magic.

The goal was to achieve a fresher, more sophisticated presentation by taking everything out of the brand that is not necessary, focusing mainly on the citrus, and eliminating all the noise. Partner Ed Moeller recalls the feeling at Zunda Group being: "Let's simplify the message and make the Citrus Magic very easy to find." This means easy to find the product on the shelf as much as it means easy to find the brand name on the label.

The new simple, clean organic looking citrus graphic utilizes vegetable-based inks on a minimal, yet persuasive, clear label for instant shelf recognition of the "all-natural" positioning. The visual design and the structural design combine to emphasize the cleaning power and refreshing fragrances of the natural citrus oils. This concept sets the stage for a new design standard in the "green cleaning" category and will surely stand out from the crowd at retail.

The new graphic presentation is minimalistic with a clean logo emphasizing the citrus source and with leaf accents emphasizing natural ingredients. The fruit segment circle dominates the package, but not in a cute or hokey way. The Zunda Group intended the product line packaging to be a flexible design platform for possible extensions and also reflect different fragrances in the line. The orange line is shown, but yellow packaging could be used for a lemon fragrance, and so forth.

Zunda Group partner Gary Esposito saw the project as moving Citrus Magic away from the mainstream, and even experimenting with a look that was out of the box. "We wanted to unify the line by letting the structures indicate the function," explains Esposito. "There should be nothing out on the market that looks like this."

One goal of the Zunda Group redesign was to avoid "overpackaging" by simplifying the designs, reducing co-mingled materials, and streamlining components. In keeping with the all-natural image and mission of the company, the Zunda Group was adamant that the packages not use any aerosol. After a deep product search, they found a delivery system that they could cross-pollinate from the garden category, where it is in limited use.

Zunda created a corn-based plastic pump dispenser that when it is pumped a few times it will pressurize the container. Pressing a release button releases the citrus air freshener into the room naturally with air pressure. The all-purpose cleaner has a traditional trigger spray that is more seamlessly integrated into the neck of the bottle, where it locks into place when not in use.

The package for the carpet cleaner is topped with a segmented citrus lid in the same proportions as the brandmark. The consumer twists the top to expose holes and meter the amount of cleaning powder dispensed. The solid air freshener also allows for fine adjustment so the consumer can better manage the product use. Users simply twist open the two-part container to adjust window holes for more or less air freshening power.

To be true to the Citrus Magic brand positioning of striving to be an environmentally conscious company, Zunda Group found a PLA-plastic provider that designs and manufactures proprietary corn starch-based, renewable, and compostable plastics created from breakthrough technology. The PLA material can be molded and extruded in rigid formats for all the Citrus Magic bottles. These plastics return to nature quickly and safely, meeting the demand from consumers and manufacturers for sustainable plastics.