It's been a whirlwind couple of weeks for Puckator. Trade show season is one of the busiest times of year for the team, and we had some fantastic news from Spring Fair at the NEC – one of our products had won in the Gift of the Year awards!
Innovation and originality are what the judges are looking for, and the Giftware Association panel said that the round Relaxeazzz travel pillow and built in eyemask was something completely new.
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It combines a fun and very eye-catching look for kids with the comfort and practicality you need on any long journey – and the panel also liked the quality of manufacture. The memory foam filling of the pillow makes for ultimate comfort, but when zipped up, it's compact and portable.
Lauren and Jack from our design team, who worked together on Relaxeazzz, said that travel pillows are normally aimed at adults. They both wanted to create something that children would love and want to use. Jack admits that he had boys in mind when he envisaged the Monsterz characters, but many of the designs are drawn from the Cutiemals collection that Lauren has been working on – and these appeal across both age and gender.
The Relaxeazzz is definitely a novel take on the traditional travel pillow, but the designers were pleased with how smoothly the transition from concept to final product went.
Jack and Lauren had a great time at the Spring Fair talking to people who had heard about the Gift of the Year win, finding out which was their favourite from all the designs (koala and duck were popular on the stand) and chatting to customers who wanted have a closer look at Relaxeazzz.
Winning one of the Gift of the Year titles opens a lot of doors, says Jack: it puts Puckator up there as a creative and design-led company, and leads to interest from people who might not have heard of us before. The Gift Association were also really friendly and helpful, providing lots of advice on how to use the win to boost sales.
Lauren said she had to peek through her fingers as the winner was announced – she was expecting to be a runner-up and couldn't quite believe she was seeing her own design up there on the big screen.
Well done Lauren and Jack - we can't wait to see what comes out from the design workshop next this year!
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