Mx. (Student Project)

Designer: Jenny Yoo
Project Type: Student Project
School: Pratt Institute
Course: Senior Project
Tutor: Matthew Strong
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Packaging Contents: Skincare Products
Packaging Substrate / Materials: Paper
Printing Process: Printing, Foil stamping

The gender binary is not enough. Gender neutrality is not enough. Mx. is a skincare line that serves to re-articulate gender neutrality by celebrating, rather than eliminating, the entire gender spectrum, through its branding.

Its name, Mx., is a gender-neutral honorific. On the primary packaging, the logo changes with each product and on the brand's website, the logo exists as a looping gif. This changing logo highlights the brand's focus on the multiplicity of genders and represents the fluidity of gender.

The products come in a kit whose structure reflects the dynamic nature of gender. When the two sides of the outer boxes are pulled apart, they come to represent the far edges of the spectrum. All of the brand's colorful gradients are derived from well-known Renaissance paintings. The outer boxes' gradients are creating using "The Birth of Venus" and "The Creation of Adam", representing the gender binary (Male and Female) as the socially dominant displays of gender. The inner box uses two blending modes of the Male and Female gradients to represent Both and Neither, two genders that exist on the spectrum. These represent many people's truest inner selves that are often suppressed or unexpressed in society. These gradients are equally as beautiful and necessary to complete the brand's secondary packaging.

The brand's models are androgynous figures from various, well-known Renaissance paintings, highlighting the beauty in androgyny and reminding the consumer of a time when androgyny was celebrated as it should be. The tight crops on the images remind the consumer of each product's use and function.

Mx. serves and celebrates all people of all genders and allows them to express themselves on a daily basis with the products they use!