01INCLUSIVE PARK
02PUBLIC WASHROOM
03SOUND WALK
04CODING EXPLORATION
07ART GALLERY
08PATTERN RECOGNITION & WHY?
01INCLUSIVE PARK
02PUBLIC WASHROOM
03SOUND WALK
04CODING EXPLORATION
07ART GALLERY
08PATTERN RECOGNITION & WHY?
VISUAL COMMUNICATION
March2025
*Please note that this project is an independent academic design and it’s a conceptual exploration and not an official collaboration.*
05
GUMRAAH
PACKAGING AS A WEARBALE RITUAL (Limited-Edition Chewing Gum Collectible)
BRANDING & PACKAGING DESIGN
GUMRAAH
PACKAGING AS A WEARBALE RITUAL (Limited-Edition Chewing Gum Collectible)
This project tested packaging as cultural alchemy: transforming everyday gum into a subversive artifact for India's affluent rebels catering to the chosen brand. The brief demanded a fashion/cosmetics brand canvas, but the real pursuit was designing collectible rituals that outlive consumption—where form provokes, materials seduce, and unboxing performs.
WHY FROSTBITE?
Frostbite became the perfect medium for this experiment. Their Mumbai-rooted jewelry turns street poetry into wearable contradictions, mirroring my goal: elevate gum from fleeting chew to defiant memory. Their ethos—fluid reinvention, narrative rebellion, anti-algorithmic maximalism—provided the precise constraint to remix oral vanity into something raw yet refined. It was the ideal foil for proving packaging can sculpt attitude, not just contain product.GUMRAAH sticks, stings, and seduces—a cheeky mashup of "gum" (the chewable rebel), "raah" (Hindi for path), and "gumraah" (deliciously misguided). It lures you off the straight-and-narrow into oral opulence, whispering where grillz shout: Mughal bejewelled teeth, paan-stained glam, supari rituals reimagined as fleeting defiance. Perfect foil for Frostbite's hybrid tongue—English-vernacular mischief, subversive laughs, cross-category chaos—GUMRAAH sounds like trouble but lands like art, turning every chew into a detour worth collecting.
Mouth Sculpture Dispenser—hand-moulded mouth (prototype) cradling tooth-shaped gums between teeth like grillz—turns plucking into performance, not just function. Frostbite's recurring mouth motif (Kundan (gold-set gems), Meenakari (vibrant enameling), and jaali latticework—Persian florals fused with Indian gold filigree) meets gum's fleeting intimacy, contrasting jewelry permanence with chewable ephemerality. Each glossy, grillz-patterned wrapper nods to their street-luxury archive; post-chew, the grotesque-yet-gorgeous sculpture endures as shelf art—a collectible blurring fashion, utility, and attitude that asks: what if the wrapper becomes the treasure?
1. Black/white editorial base pierced with striking bold colours signaling desire
2. Turning FMCG gum into cult collectible.
3. Brutalist typography (Monument Extended) clashes with quirky Urdu Mughal flourishes and anti-design quirks for playful disruption.
Each layer slows users into reverence, positioning disposable chew as display-worthy art to not just consume but instead collect.