I was hired by Pork Pie Hatters (now part of JJ Hat Center) to design and fabricate a line of flat-pack hat stands.

Pork Pie Hatters is a uniquely New York institution. It was born in Brooklyn and caters to an audience who likes monochrome clothes, stand a good chance of getting caught in the rain, and don’t have much extra space in their apartments. This means that bulky hat boxes aren’t too welcome in their customer’s homes, but they’d still appreciate a way to display and protect their favorite hats.

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I came up with a hat stand that could pack flat inside of a small box that also served as its retail packaging. The stand incorporates Pork Pie’s pig branding, and assembles without any special tools – all you need is a quarter to tighten up the binding post that connects the whole assembly together.

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The box features a splash graphic on the front, and assembly instructions on the back. The stands were laser cut from 1/4″ cherry veneer ply and retailed at Pork Pie’s Williamsburg storefront. The graphics were applied using custom laser cut stamps for the front and back of the packaging. I also designed an alignment jig to keep production time down and quality up.