Student Work / Roberta Zanette

"In 2009, I graduated in Industrial Design at UniRitter (Porto Alegre, Brazil). In order to do my final project, I decided to draw packaging for jam and jellies, because these products are pretty popular not only in the south of Brazil, but also in many other places. I had two main goals with my project: to affect the environment as little as possible and to develop a product with easy access to a great number of people.

Concerning the environment goal, I decided to project a returnable packaging system. After being used, the packaging should go back to their factory, where they would be washed and potted again. In this system, it is not necessary neither to discard packaging nor to manufacture new ones. I chose glass as the packaging material because it is very resistant and it can be recycled without loosing any of its physical and chemical characteristics.

Regarding labeling, I proposed a clean layout, in contrast with many other brands. This characteristic can highlight the product in the retail store gondola. In order to create an attractive packaging, I chose white as the predominant color of the label, which was illustrated by José Lourenço Degani (architect and professor at UniRitter). In addition to this, I decided to show all the obligatory information on the cover, so the rest of the packaging is free to identify the product.

The result of my final project was a packaging system with three different sizes – 600g, 450g and 300g – all in glass format. They were drawn in a way that they could be nested in any order. This characteristic helps the packaging transportation and its stacking, because it decreases the product volume when the packages are empty.

I decided to use vacuum pressure in the closing system, so it is easy to open and close the packaging, and it is also good for the product conservation. Another important characteristic is that the sizes of the cover and the label are the same for the three different packaging sizes."

Designer: Roberta Zanette
Country: Brazil

Student Work / Lee Coren

"Laundry detergent packaging concept, designed for a class assignment under the "One of many" idea, so you can take home not just a box, but a part of an experience. 

This great laundry detergent is to be sold on those every-day laundromats, designed for young, fun-loving, mess-making kind of people, living on their own.

The concept is "Clean Clothes For Dirty People" - inspired by the washing machine drum structure, soap bubbles, new found sexy chic of laundromat and urban living."

Designer: Lee Coren
Country: Israel

Breakfast Smoothies

"A packaging project for University, quite self defined, we were given the question 'What is good?' and left to take it in whatever direction we wanted.

I chose smoothies, and promoted them as a breakfast drink."

Designer: Heather Bradley
Country: UK

Designer Spotlight / Ruth Pearson

Ruth Pearson is a British 3rd year Graphic Design Student at University College Falmouth. She just launched a portfolio site with some of her recent works.

Agency: Ruth Pearson
Country: UK

Empanadas Rebranding & Repackaging

Empanadas is a well-knowing typical and popular food from Colombia, but never had a visual identity and a packaging system to be sell any place on the globe, they always be sold in craft bags . Then. The objective of the packaging was to be sold inside and outside Colombia. After research, the values that i find usefull for communication to accomplish that objective was elegance and sophistication but the value of Colombian Vitality must be maintained. To help the "main" packaging and to preserve the idea of the consumers, the packaging come with two classic bags that remember consumers the classic form of eat empanadas.

Designer: Nicolas Ortega
Country: Colombia

Simon Chénier's Honey Packaging

Sylvain Allard sent another interesting student project from his class.

"Do we need another packaging? If it’s not to improve what we already have, the answer is no. The last project in my packaging class was exploring new approaches and innovation in package designs and codes for basic products like honey in this example.

Here Simon Chénier is exploring functional, aesthetic and information design. The honey is identified with numbers related to its color. The elegant and decorative bottle is not aimed at "plastic teddy bear" clientele but more at those who are sensible about simplicity and beauty. The graphic design still refer in it’s own way to bees pattern. The cap is also a spreading stick allowing a full and complete experience of the product."

Country: Canada
Related Posts: Tofu Frugal Packaging

Tofu Frugal Packaging

Sylvain Allard is a graphic design professor at the University of Quebec in Montreal.
He teaches packaging design. Here is a quite interesting recent project from one of his students:

If you're among those who think that tofu is a rather boring and bland product, you might want to have a look at this new way of conditioning and packaging tofu. This study by Marie-Eve Dubois in my packaging class is quite an interesting way of combining esthetic and function.

The first goal was to solve the water change problem and try to make it easier in creating this valve that makes the emptying easier. To avoid a blockage of the valve by the product when turned, the tofu is molded into a half spherical shape. The shape makes it functional and much nicer than the standard block. From a graphic point of view, the pure simplistic approach is trading the old traditional Asian look for a much more occidental clientele. The jar is also useful for recipe mixes the tofu with various spices and sauces. It could also be used as a bowl.

Allard also has a great french packaging blog called Packaginguqam, you should definetely check it out.

Designer: Marie-Eve Dubois
Country: Canada