Surprise! Righteous Fur gift boxes will be landing on the desks of Marc Jacobs, Anna Sui, Alexander Wang and other top designers over the next couple weeks. Handcrafted by graphic design students at Loyola University, where professor Daniela Marx challenged her class to come up with the best design in a “Project Nutria” competition, the boxes are designed to pique designers’ interest in working with nutria pelts.

On December 23, when most Loyola students had long since left campus, the graphic design team was hard at work. After a security guard let us into the graphics lab in Monroe Hall, I helped winning box designer Vicky Tran and winning press-book designer Max McKenna put the finishing touches on the boxes by hand-binding the books in the Japanese style. I can’t show you what’s inside the boxes; don’t want to spoil the surprise! But I can give you a sneak preview of what designers will see before they open the boxes. Big shoutout to Daniela, Vicky, Max and the entire class for bringing this project to fruition! Stay tuned for updates on designer reactions………

Vicky Tran designed the winning box. Aren’t you curious to know what’s inside?

Max McKenna stitches up his winning design for the Righteous Fur press book.

Vicky and Max had some tough competition. “Project Nutria” runner-up Rachel Winters (above) based her design on emergency sewing kits given to soldiers in the field during World War II. The New York Times press clip at top is printed on fabric.