Under glorious blue skies, students and businesspeople met at Korsnäs in Frövi for a full day of packaging design activities. The competition entries were of very high quality and Maria Hjerppe from Mälardalens Högskola took home first prize – a trip to Barcelona – with her DVD box for the Space Wars trilogy.
During the day, participants heard from this year’s main attraction, Lars Wallentin, packaging guru and former creative director at Nestlé in Switzerland. ‘Do it big or stay in bed’ and ‘Simplify and amplify’ are just two bits of advice he shared while spellbinding the audience for an hour and a half on the subject of Packaging: A to Z. ‘I thought packaging was interesting before Lars Wallentin’s talk, but now I truly understand how many undiscovered opportunities there are in packaging design,’ said Sara Zetterberg, one of the student contestants. ‘Now I’m really fired up.’
Mackmyra on hand – sorry, no tasting
The day also included something of a world premiere. Just a few days after the event, the world’s first Swedish-produced Scotch whisky – Mackmyra – was released. Rikard Lundborg of Mackmyra provided insight into how the project began and Nicklas Bentsson of Eson Pack, who produced the box using Korsnäs White, talked about everything that went into the final packaging design. Unfortunately, Korsnäs’ alcohol policy did not permit a tasting, but Mälarchocolaterie was on hand with samples of handmade chocolate, also packaged using Korsnäs White. Amongst the pralines a whisky chocolate had succeeded in making it past the censors.
After a panel debate on the theme of cost-efficient packaging moderated by editor-in-chief Bo Wallteg of Nord Emballage Magazine and packnyheter.se, it was time for the awards ceremony.
Anything but square
The jury had its work cut out for it choosing among the 29 entries, but ended up unanimously selecting as the first-prize winner a brilliant DVD pack shaped like the Millennium Falcon, the huge space ship in Space Wars. ‘A versatile pack offering remarkable freedom of choice, depending on how you stamp out the board. This packaging makes innovative use of the properties of Korsnäs White with a design that could be commercial reality tomorrow. A pack you will be seeing in the shops,’ wrote the jury. ‘When I heard the theme was “Anything but square”, I immediately thought of DVD boxes,’ says Maria Hjerppe. ‘They are always square and usually made of plastic.’ Maria is looking forward to her trip to Barcelona, where she will visit the city’s leading school of applied art and design, the Escola Massana, which has been arranging design competitions in cooperation with Korsnäs for many years. In October, along with the winners of PIDA France, she will take part in Easy Fairs in Stockholm, which will feature a display of entries from this year’s competition.