The annual Pentawards honor the best packaging designs from around the world, in five major markets. This year’s coveted Diamond Pentaward, which is presented for Best of Show, went to the Established agency in New York, NY, for their design for Marc Jacobs Beauty’s signature range of lipsticks, the Marc Jacobs Kiss Pop collection.

Established has designed a number of packages for Marc Jacobs Beauty, and also received a 2015 Silver Pentaward for their bottle design for Marc Jacobs Mod Noir.

Beauty Packaging’s editor-in-chief, Jamie Matusow, recently caught up with Sam O’Donahue, the owner and creative director of Established, to learn more about the husband-and-wife team behind the innovative designs.

Jamie Matusow: Please briefly describe Established and the types of projects you work on in the Beauty industry.
Sam O’Donahue: Established is a multi-disciplinary design studio specializing in product design, graphic design, branding and architecture. Set up by my wife, Becky Jones, and me, in New York City in 2007, we specialize in the luxury market and have a track record of creating highly successful brands for a wide range of clients.

JM: What was your brief for the Marc Jacobs Beauty “pencils” that won the Pentaward?
SO: After a very successful launch of Marc Jacobs Cosmetics, the client wanted to follow up with a fun line of products. They wanted something that was on the one hand, young and fun, but on the other hand, luxurious.

JM: How did you begin the design? What was your inspiration?
SO: Our inspiration was the idea of finding playful ways to apply color to your face, and this led to the idea of crayons and coloring pencils.

JM: How did the final design achieve the goal?
SO: In high-end makeup design, the packaging is usually sleek and sophisticated, and sometimes it is playful. It is very rarely both sophisticated and youthful. The fact that there is also a witty humor in this Marc Jacobs packaging shows that clever design can extend to the luxury category.

JM: Were there any challenges involved in executing the design—or in producing the packages?
SO: Aspects of the industrial design were quite tricky in that to pull off such a level of playfulness while still reassuring the consumer that the product was luxurious relied on the fit and finish being absolutely immaculate. BP

(For a look at Established’s other awards: establishednyc.com/about/)