New Product Design Project: Safe Sizer Choking Prevention Plates

I am excited to be able to share the results of a great collaborative project that I've been working on this year...Illustrations for the Safe Sizer Choking Prevention Plates. I have had the opportunity to work with David Zak of Midwest Monkeys for several years now on his child safety-related designs. This summer I was given the opportunity to work on some new and more modern-looking designs for his line of SafeSizer plates. If you visit his website's product page, you can see the original "nature series," and below that the new "animal series."

In a nutshell, I was asked to create some more modern designs that could better fit into someone's kitchen...not as bright and "kid-ish" as the original designs. After some research into some patterns and color combinations that were relevant to the market, I presented David with several options, ranging from geometric patterns to basic colors to animal illustration.


After we landed on the color schemes and this idea of "animals and the foods they eat," I was very happy to have the opportunity to bring in my sister, Heidi Panelli of Panelli Design, to turn my quick concept illustrations into more professional final art. At first David was a little reluctant to bring in another designer, being that he was happy with the plates as they were. However, knowing her talent and expertise as an illustrator could take these images to a whole new level, I was fortunate enough to have a client who in the end, valued the design process and my opinions enough to allow me to bring in Heidi to complete the project.

Design direction as illustrated by GF Design:


Final art created by Panelli Design:


Taking the overall design direction and colors from my quick illustrations, Heidi took them all up a notch, giving them the professional, fun and playful look that David and I were after. The end resulted in a fantastic new line of plates to further differentiate David's great idea of the Safe Sizer Choking Prevention ring, molded into each plate.



Luckily for David and all of my clients, my ego is not so big as to prevent me from recognizing when someone I know would be better suited for part of a particular project. I am always looking for ways to give my clients the best work possible, even if it means passing off work to someone else. My clients have always been happy with the results on the projects that my sister and I collaborate on. I hope to do more collaborative projects like this down the road! Many thanks to David of Midwest Monkeys for being open enough to allow the design process to work, and for having enough faith in us as designers to allow us to do what it took to get to reach the best end product possible!