Corporate Onboarding Gift Kits for a Tech Company in Germany

The brief

A growing technology company in Germany wanted every new hire to receive a consistent onboarding kit on their first day. The people team had a clear list of items and an equally clear standard for presentation: the kit should feel considered and premium, not like a bag of promotional extras.

• A5 notebook with a soft-touch cover and debossed logo.
• Metal ballpoint pen with laser-engraved branding.
• Stainless steel tumbler with a laser-engraved logo and a spill-resistant lid.
• Cotton tote bag with a screen-printed logo.
• Rigid gift box with a magnetic lid and a die-cut foam insert holding each item in place.

Each kit also needed an individual label so that the company's office teams could track kits by batch and distribute them across sites.

Our approach

Corporate kits bring together products from different industries, so the main challenge is making separate items look like they belong together. We treated the box, not any single item, as the anchor of the project.

Curating and aligning the items

We sourced each item from a factory specialising in that product, then aligned finishes around the brand palette: the notebook cover, pen barrel and tumbler colour were matched to the same reference, while the tote used a natural cotton tone that complemented them. Pre-production samples of all four items arrived within the 7–15 day sample window and were reviewed together, as a set, rather than one by one.

Box and foam insert development

With final dimensions confirmed, our packaging team designed the rigid box and foam insert around the actual samples. The folded tote sat in a base layer, while the notebook, pen and tumbler were held in cut-outs above it. A white sample box was made first to check fit and lid closure before the printed version was approved.

Labelling plan

We agreed a labelling format with the client covering kit reference, batch and destination site, applied to the outer sleeve of each box so it could be removed before handing the kit to the new employee.

Production & quality control

Items were produced in parallel and delivered to our kitting area, where they were checked on arrival before assembly began.

1. Incoming inspection: each item was checked for branding position, colour against the approved reference, and surface defects.
2. Functional checks: pens were writing-tested and tumbler lids were tested for fit and leaks.
3. Kitting: items were placed in the foam insert in a fixed sequence, with the insert card on top and the lid closed and sleeved.
4. Labelling: individual labels were printed and applied, then scanned against the packing list to confirm counts per destination.
5. Pre-shipment inspection: finished kits were sampled for completeness, presentation and carton packing.

Shipping cartons were sized to hold kits upright with corner protection, so the rigid boxes would arrive without crushed edges.

Delivery

Before dispatch, we sent the client a kit-by-kit summary listing quantities per destination office, carton counts and gross weights, together with inspection photos of finished boxes. This allowed the people team to plan storage at each site and confirm that enough kits were allocated to match upcoming start dates.

Finished kits were shipped to the client's chosen consolidation point in Germany, with carton labels grouped by destination office. The full program, from item selection to dispatch, took around ten weeks, with production itself within our standard 15–30 day window.

All artwork files, foam insert drawings and item specifications are held on file, so the client can call off further batches as hiring continues, or swap a single item without redesigning the whole kit.

With multi-item kits, designing the box and insert around real samples, not drawings, is what makes separate products feel like one gift.