Johnson & Johnson's Big Design Challenge

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Chris Hacker Mark Mahaney

The apparently simple repackaging of J&J's flagship brand keeps the iconic teardrop but adds cleaner type and tinted bottles. Mark Weiss

Big box stores considered Band-Aid's previous cardboard bulk package to be forbidding. The new version features a set of interlocking plastic cases—and is now stocked by stores such as Costco. Mark Weiss

Johnson & Johnson acquired the Rembrandt brand in 2005, revamping the product line before relaunching it last May. Mark Weiss

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think about what motivates the consumer to take the product home."

Hacker's team handles most of J&J's design work, but with the company's enormous portfolio of brands, ranging from Acuvue to Wart-Off, he hasn't been afraid to seek help from some of the field's most creative practitioners. New York designer Harry Allen's revamped First Aid kit, in streamlined white plastic, will soon be coming to a drug store near you. Also in the works: a new Tylenol bottle from Yves Béhar, a "skin-care analyzer" from Antenna Design, and new boxes by Stephen Doyle that Hacker hopes will "change the way people think about Band-Aid."

Hacker also hopes to change the way designers and corporations think about sustainability. "Everything we do is as sustainable as we can make it," he says. "It's part of the process, but it's not the definition. We're designing to create positive consumer experience, and while we do that—by the way—we're also making it sustainable. I'm on a mission to tell designers that sustainability has got to be a part of what they do."

To that end, he's implemented a phased design process, developed at Aveda, that begins with the investigation of new production and material technologies, specifies recycled and biodegradable materials wherever possible, and makes every effort to patronize facilities powered by renewable energy. "The logic is to establish a set of sustainable guidelines to let us work on the things we can work on," he says.

That may not satisfy hard-core environmentalists, but it's undeniably a new direction for consumer-goods companies like J&J, and a smart move as well, says Marc Gobé, president of New York-based think tank Emotional Branding. "Green has become an important aspect of consumer choice, and if your company already has strong brand values, like J&J does, this is what consumers are expecting," Gobé says. For Hacker, the fight is more personal: "You can't stay on the sidelines and not get involved," he says. "As an activist for the cause of environmental sustainability, I believe that if I don't come to big companies and try to help them become better, then it's hard to complain."

Provided by I.D. Magazine—The International Design Magazine