RegardingDesign

The Latest and Greatest in Packaging Design

The Pentawards have recently been announced. This is the only internationally focused design competition focused on packaging. I have to say that I find their choice for Best of Show a bit, well, dizzying. A recognition of gimick more than actual design, perhaps? I don't know about you, but looking at this upside down bottle makes me feel as if I've already imbibed the contents. It conjures up images of the empty bottles, tossed napkins, and memories better suppressed from the night before. Oh well, perhaps that's the point. It was designed by the fasion-istas Viktor & Rolf.

  Other award winners are more what one might expect. TurnerDuckworth's aluminum Coca Cola bottles won yet another award, Platinum, Best of Beverage Category. They'll have to build a display case for all the awards they've gotten for this one. Pemberton & Whitefoord of the UK won Platinum in the Food category for these engaging tortilla chip bags and the Dutch firm DesignBridge won Platinum in the Body category for these men's styling products. If you want to see all the winners, check out the Pentaward blog.

And if you want to get even more package design ideas, I can recommend this book, titled appropriately enough, 1000 Package Designs, A Comprehensive Guide to Packing It In, designed by Grip in Chicago. The book features page after page of lovely packaging, organized by style rather than category into chapters titled things like Gasp/Playful, NeatO/Vintage, Word/Urban.

Here are some sample spreads to whet your appetite.

More Color Harmony

 

Here's another interesting book in the Color Harmony series....this one focuses on packaging. Color Harmony Packaging, which comes with an interactive CD, provides case studies of ten different packaging designs for a variety of products from around the world. Then, they apply a wide range of different colorways to these same packages, showing quite clearly the difference colors can make.

You can easily test your own response -- would you reach for a Boddington's Ale on a hot summer day if instead of the familiar yellow and black can you were offered one in pale shades of peach and lavendar??? Check it out -- there's more than 800 colorways to consider.

"Design the Process, don't decorate a product."

So suggests Aaris Sherin in the book SustainAble. She's discussing product packaging, but she could be talking about all aspects of sustainable design...or even just good design in general. The point is that sustainable design can be, and should be, about so much more than picking recycled content paper. It's about looking at the entire chain of events that lead up to the final product, as well as what happens once that product is used and the packaging is discarded. The paper industry is pretty on top of this cycle (we'll talk more about that in a different post), but packaging design seems like it has a ways to go.

Sure, recycling our plastics is wonderful, but it's also important to look at things like the following: Does the packaging make it more efficient to pack a truck so you can save on fuel costs? Where does the raw material to make the packaging come from? Can these materials be sourced from someplace that supports and develops the local economy? Can the packaging be not just recycled, but perhaps repurposed or reused in some other way once the initial product is used? Here are some images of a promotional package made by Miloby Design that shows this repurposing idea in action.

While these questions may seem like quite a burden when put in the mix of finding the right font that will make a product stand out on the store shelf, among other concerns, they can also be viewed as a fascinating intellectual challenge that will make you not only a better designer, but just maybe a better person as well.

There was recently an article in the New York Times on new milk packaging for big box stores like Costco and Sam's Club. It was a fascinating explication of the far reaching effects -- good and bad -- and the customer-acceptance challenges that new packaging faces. This article provides a good case history of the kinds of things designers of packaging will need to start considering as we face increasing environmental challenges.

This just in...

PENTAWARDS DEADLINE EXTENDED

The Pentawards 2008 Worldwide design awards for excellence in brand packaging design competition has extended its deadline for entering to June 30 with no late fee. Awards will be given in Monaco, France on October 30.

So go upload you best packaging designs. Quick.

And if you've got nothing for this year, go check out this book and remember that there's always next year....

It's less than twenty bucks new and who knows -- could give you your next big idea. It's full of interesting packaging for books, magazines, brochures, CDs, mailers, and products from the sinful (cigarettes) to the indulgent (jewelry.) There's even a burial kit so you can take your high-design-mindedness into the "undiscovered country."

1000 Music Graphics Launch Party

The party to celebrate the launch of 1000 Music Graphics (Rockport Publishers) in Boston last week (to coincide with the HOW Design Conference), went off without a hitch. Author Clif Stoltze of Stoltze Design, was the bell of the ball as he graciously hosted his guests.

More than 150 people attended including John Bielenberg, founder of Project M; Steven Gordon Jr., of RDQLUS; Robynne Raye and Michael Strassburger of Modern Dog; Terry Marks of tmarks design; John Foster of Fuszion, and many, many more.

The live music was phenomenal and all had a good time. The book is phenomenal, too—check it out. Congrats Clif!
-EP

photo: John Foster, Robynne Raye, Emily Potts