Brown Box Agency allows packaging science students to manage their own consulting firm

March 19, 2025March 19, 2025

Start-ups, local businesses and even large companies often look for packaging solutions.

Meanwhile, students from the University of Clemson’s packaging science program is still looking to acquire real world experience they can acquire with them after graduation.

Thus, the Brown Box agency was born. The Brown Box agency was formed about 18 months ago as an agency of packaging solutions managed by students. It mainly does the design and prototyping of paper -based packages. The work is done internally at the Sonoco Institute of Packaging Design and Graphics.

Brown Box Agency started when Andrew Hurley, an associate professor of packaging science, and the Southern Carolina Commerce Department collaborated to finance a business idea where students could discover what it was to work as a consulting firm in the packaging industry.

“Hope is that companies can associate with us and offer students opportunities to obtain real world design experience, project management experience, opportunities to interface with external companies, then create turnkey solutions that meet the needs of these businesses,” said Haley Appleby, co -director of Sonoco Institute for Design and Graphics. “It is a winner-win insofar as companies get solutions, students acquire experience and we can build a unique program.”

Pierce Hall, a student graduate in packaging sciences, supervises the agency, which is currently made up of three first cycle paid trainees of the Professional Internship and Professional Cooperative Program of the University of Clemson. The trainees each work 160 hours per semester. Most projects are carried out within 30 to 45 days.

Once a customer submits a project request, a 30 -minute free consultation meeting is held to see if the project is well suited to the agency. A quote is then sent to the customer and, if it is accepted, a kick -off meeting is held when the group establishes a calendar mapping the different stages.

A brainstorming session is held where the students throw different ideas before reducing them in versions 5 to 10 to send to the customer. Once the customer decides an idea, students provide three cycles of iterations to move forward. A final version made up of a model or prototype and all the files are then sent to the customer.

“Any Brown Box work for a customer is a complete transfer of intellectual property,” said Hall. “We transform everything we have for which they paid.”

During the fall semester, students participated in a longer project than usual for Smurfit Westrock, a world leader in sustainable packaging. The project was to create a wavy chair design which was fully functional and could be placed in the hall of one of its facilities. The project took the whole semester.

“It was very fun,” said Brody Robinson, a major in senior packaging sciences in Summerville. “We would send them ideas and they would send us a scale of what the classification was real ideas. It was great to think creatively what we could do and then get their comments quickly.

“He had his ups and downs. The design with whom we ended up going was a bit complex for the machine, so it took a lot of labor to pass.

To establish a pipeline of experienced trainees ready to leave when other graduates or leave to carry out their 6-month-old cooperative required, a creative investigation course has been developed for the subclasses to help. Currently, there are two students volunteers in the team.

“The idea is that young students interested can get involved in the creative survey and start to gain experience and see how it works,” said Appleby. “They can see if they like it.”

Companies seeking to join Brown Box Agency must contact Hurley Ruperth@clemson.edu.