Brand Identity & Packaging

Tonko

Brand identity and sustainable packaging for a toy company making modular, non-toxic toys that leave plenty of room for a kid's imagination. Conscious toys for curious minds.

The Tonko World Builder Kit box on a stone ledge by a window: kraft cardboard printed with the Tonko wordmark and the three characters in an illustrated landscape, beside river stones, twine and cardboard cutouts.
Client
Tonko (concept brand)
Role
Logo Design, Character Design, Packaging Design
Timeline
5 weeks
Tools
Illustrator, Photoshop
Outcome
A full packaging system built entirely around sustainable materials

The brief

Tonko makes simple modular toys. Puzzle and building sets that bring out a kid's inner engineer, scientist, and artist. The brand needed to feel colorful and a little silly while staying sustainable and non-toxic, so kids start thinking about their own impact early. That started with the wordmark: bouncy letters with eyes built into them, plus a small cast of characters (Cube, Star, and Cloud) to carry the personality everywhere else.

Packaging is where the sustainability promise comes to life. Recyclable kraft cardboard for structure, soy-based inks, and reusable pieces like an organic cotton drawstring bag for loose parts. It costs a little more up front, and it's the part of the brand that makes the promise real.

The three Tonko mates drawn flat: Cube, a green block with legs and a gap-toothed grin; Star, a red five-point star mid-stride; and Cloud, a blue puff with one arm raised.
Cube, Star and Cloud. Three shapes a four-year-old can draw from memory, the true test for a character that lives on in crayon.
The Tonko wordmark in black and in green, the O of each set as an eye with a crescent pupil, above the line Conscious Toys for Curious Minds.
Eyes in the letters. The wordmark looks right back at you. Two colourways, because the packaging is unbleached kraft and the mark holds strong on brown as well as white.

In use

The kit tells the story. Cardboard cutouts, reclaimed wood, cork connectors, smooth river stones and a length of twine, with the finished shape left entirely to the child. What they build is a landscape for the three characters to live in, so the toy comes to life as somebody invents the rest of it.

That's also why the packaging stays so simple. The box leaves all the imagining to the kid.

A child painting a wooden Tonko piece at a table by a window, with glue, twine, river stones and the assembled scene spread out around the kit box.
The Meet the Tonko Mates box on a windowsill with plain wooden blocks and lavender beside it, the three characters printed across the front.