Ortho Personal Pak Gets New Look

The Ortho Personal Pak winning design uses positive, powerful words to convey the essence of today�s woman.

If designing a package that sums up the identity of today�s woman sounds challenging, that�s because it is. But Danielle Hughes met the challenge head on with her winning design, �Expressions,� in the first-ever Ortho Personal Pak Design-A-Pak contest. 

The Ortho Personal Pak is a discreet compact used to package Ortho Tri-Cyclen Lo birth control pills. The contest was launched in association with fashion designer Nicole Miller�s new special edition Personal Pak de-sign, Jewel.

Entries were evaluated by an individual panel of judges that included Martha Davis, the original Ortho Personal Pak designer. �We were looking for something that communicated, in a unique way, the Ortho perspective�women who are intelligent, active, and feminine,� says Davis. �A lot of people submitted images that evoked those qualities, but it is difficult to capture how multidimensional women are with just one image. Danielle chose to use words that communicated how complicated women are.� 

A computer analyst for a major oil refinery in Billings, MT, Hughes says that she chose words instead of images because of their power. �I thought of words that depicted how women should think of themselves,� she says. She also picked fonts that matched her word choices�for example the word �feminine� appears in a more feminine-looking font. Hughes� winning design will become the next cover of the Personal Pak.

No stranger to the Personal Pak, Davis was an outside consultant responsible for updating the original Ortho Dialpak dispenser in 1995. She and brand development company Michael Peters were approached by Johnson & Johnson to develop a new package for the birth control pill. �We interviewed a lot of women and pharmacists and found that they identified the dial very strongly with the product, and they wanted to retain that.� Davis set out to create a package that was more streamlined and feminine and that would integrate a hinge-and-latch form. �We looked at analogous markets in cosmetics and determined that women treat cosmetics in a similar way [to birth control pills]�they want something discreet that they can carry in their purse.�

The outer case of the new Dialpak was made of HIPS, which not only reduces the weight of the package but also allows it to be recycled, explains Davis. The inner ring of pills breaks away from the outer case, which allows the case to be reused, thereby reducing waste. The outer package is one color, says Davis, and does not contain any branding, which makes it more discreet. It can also be used for different brands of pills. The inner pill ring can be color-coded so that women and doctors can easily identify the particular brand in use.

�We saw an opportunity to develop an option that women could get excited about,� says Davis, This, in turn, led to the birth of the Personal Pak in January 2000. With seven designs to choose from�and now eight with Hughes� winning design�the Personal Pak offers women a fashionable alternative to the Dialpak. And more than serving as an attractive compact for carrying birth control pills, the Personal Pak promotes compliance as well. According to a survey of 120 Ortho Personal Pak users, more than half of the respondents said they were more likely to take their birth control pills on time as a result of using the compacts.