pawsh
project type
Packaging, Branding, Ux/Ui
year
Winter 2025 – Fall 2025
role
Graphic Designer, Lead Product Designer (app)
team
3 Graphic, 2 Packaging Designers
project overview
PAWSH is a sustainable pet care brand that uses dog DNA testing to recommend gear matched to your dog. Over a ten-week quarter, I collaborated with my team to build the brand identity, positioning, and packaging, and led app development from research through wireframes.
Team Pawsh
Sophia Levin
Graphic Design
Elizabeth Ridley
Graphic Design
Brandon Schwartz
Graphic Design
Sonia Andrade
Structural Design
Dominic Corriente
Structural Design
Advised by Linh Toscani, Irene Carbonell & Javier de la Fuente
Sponsored by PaperWorks & RRD Packaging Solutions
project outcomes
2nd place
One of three North American finalist teams at the 2025 PPA Student Design Challenge.
people's choice
Voted on by roughly 230 packaging industry professionals at the PPC Fall Meeting in Vancouver, November 2025.
100% recyclable
Recyclable even where plastic usually wins: e-commerce transit, the medical-grade swab pouch, the reseal, and the die-cut window.
the breif
Every year, the Paperboard Packaging Alliance challenges student teams across North America to reimagine a category plastic still owns — entirely in paperboard. In 2025: pet care.
300 million lbs
of plastic packaging generated by the U.S. pet industry every year (Pet Sustainability Coalition)
The assignment: design an original pet care line with at least one DNA or lab-dependent product — one unit that sells on a shelf, teaches sampling at home, protects the sample, and ships it back to the lab.
the four gaps we found
what is pawsh?
Pawsh is where science meets style: dog DNA testing paired with fashion-forward gear; our answer to the gaps in today's pet care market.
Pawsh pairs dog DNA testing with breed-matched product recommendations where science meets style, delivered in packaging that's 100% recyclable, resealable, and returnable.
the pawsh user flow
project timeline
Our process
Weeks 1–2
Finding the idea
It started with our own pets. Same team, five very different animals, and that love brought PAWSH to life. With our classes meeting once a week, I built the team's shared Notion and Figma, the backbone of all ten weeks. [PENDING: the dogs-to-concept connection line from the presentation script]
Weeks 3–4
Defining Pawsh
We profiled millennial pet owners who treat pets as family, grounded our swab steps in a real DNA collection product, and took the harness research medical: why vets recommend harnesses over collars, and the two-finger fit rule printed on our final box. Thirty-plus names later, PAWSH stuck. The app's founding user-flow architecture came out of that phase: the logic the whole brand runs on, shaped through critique with Linh.
branding
During week 4 I worked with linh to finalize the app's founding user-flow architecture in week four: the loop the whole brand runs on.
uxui
During week 4 I worked with linh to finalize the app's founding user-flow architecture in week four: the loop the whole brand runs on.
Weeks 5–8
Convergence
Illustration, type studies, and structure ran in parallel — fifteen dieline prototypes for the DNA kit alone. Advisor critique drove everything: cutting instructional copy in half, splitting the shipper patterns into "science dogs" and "fashion dogs," and championing the vertical logotype that became a signature of the system.
branding
uxui
structural prototypes
Weeks 9-10
The Final Sprint
Five full design rounds in the last week, then print day on SBS board (Kraft for the shippers, chosen to conceal distribution scuffs), assembly, 10-point drop tests, in-store photography, and the video shot and edited in the final 48 hours.
video shoot
Fall 2025
Chosen as a finalist / the second season
September–November
Presentation prep
Being named a finalist meant rebuilding the work as a story: we compressed everything into a ~20-slide, image-forward presentation — our advisors' note that the strategy was really "an ecosystem that works for both e-commerce and retail" became our framing — rehearsed to time, and flew to Vancouver.
November, (insert conference dates here)
Placing second/the conference?
Presenting pawsh?? maybe put that here that could be cool, one thing that was funny was that ppl kept coming up to me saying I could be in politics bc of my presentation skills!
the outcome
The DNA test kit
the dna kit
The original College Sauce UI before our redesign.
The unopened kit in Pawsh Purple; resealed for return, the front panel flips to Yorkie Yellow.
resealing
The original College Sauce UI before our redesign.
The Breathe Easy Harness
p-window
The original College Sauce UI before our redesign.
repawsh return
The original College Sauce UI before our redesign.
the brand system
A bold wordmark deployed horizontally and vertically — I designed the vertical logotype layout, which an advisor championed in critique and pushed across both boxes — five breed-punned colors, the Obviously Variable typeface, and a cast of illustrated dog characters: Liz set the illustration style, and I vectorized the set for production and added several dogs of my own.
the logo
Refined obviously variable logotype by Brandon
the color system
Somewhere in the process we started naming every color after a dog as an inside joke. It stuck.
app store mockup
A concept for how the brand could look in the App Store. Sarah's planning to update the real screenshots to match.
The app
the prototype flow
Text and color styles, components, and prototyped flows, packaged and prepped for the client hand-off.
check it out for yourself
the fix
Seven features, one map-first experience
onboarding
I designed the onboarding flow to collect user event interests and clubs upfront so the map is already filtered when a student lands on it. Instead of a feature tour, the first screen they see is their campus, showing what they actually care about.
loading animation by Edrick Wong
scrapbook
Photos from an event land in one shared album instead of a group text nobody can find later. Show up and you earn that event's sticker, which lives on your profile.
explore map
Inspired by Apple Maps, we built a pull-up card system with search, filters, and list view, with color-coded tags to narrow by event type.
sauce map
Toggling the sauce map adds a live density layer, so students can see where the energy is, not just where events are.
event posting
Clubs can now set events to repeat, which cuts down on repetitive tasks. Tags allow for multiple categories and let students filter more precisely, including by wheelchair access, live captions, and service animal friendly. Venue photos, co-hosts, and invite-only or public settings give hosts control over who sees what.
the reaction
Industry feedback
Drop-tested shippers, printed prototypes on a real retail shelf, a live finalist presentation — and a ballroom of roughly 230 industry professionals who voted pawsh the people's choice.
Printed prototypes photographed in-store — the shelf test the whole system was designed for.
reflection
A wonderful journey idk
Standing at the podium in Vancouver — presenting to the same room that would vote pawsh the people's choice that night — was the moment ten weeks of work snapped into focus. I came into this project a graphic designer and left understanding dielines, board calipers, Pantone workflows, and what it takes for artwork to survive printing, folding, and shipping; I now think about how a thing gets made while I'm still sketching it. The best ideas lived at the seam between disciplines — the p-shaped window only worked because our packaging designers could engineer what I imagined — and the app taught me that knowing what to cut is a design skill: everything that shipped served one job, getting a dog owner from swab to recommendation without friction. And somewhere between the 6 a.m. file uploads and the wine nights, four teammates became close friends. The thing I'll remember longest isn't the award — it's how much fun we had earning it.
special thanks to
The pawsh team
Special thanks to the College Sauce team: my co-lead Maxine Ancheta, and Xouxa Latendresse, Edrick Wong, Subha Eranki, and Pavani Balaji, who showed up twice a week and brought the energy. Spotify jams, and dressing as a tomato for the showcase, Maxine and I in green as the stem (see image below). I'm so thankful for this team and the friendships that outlasted the scope.
