Your product’s packaging is arguably the first thing the consumer sees, as a part of the product experience. It forms the first ever interaction between product and consumer, and a successful interaction means a consumer will pick the product up off the aisle and add it to their cart. Bad packaging design can adversely affect a product’s success or its performance, while a well-packaged product allows it to stand out, prompting someone to pick it up and decide to purchase it. Packaging Design is more than just a box with artwork… it’s the product around the product, and deserves as much attention while designing as the item within it.
Packaging Design forms just one of the various categories of the A’ Design Award and Competition, which spans the popular categories like Architecture, Lighting, and Consumer Electronics, as well as the obscure, lesser-known categories like Cybernetics, Prosumer Products, and Safety Apparel Design. The A’ Design Award’s ultimate goal is to be an umbrella that covers good design across all disciplines, which is why it has 100 different categories for submitting design projects, and 211 jury members (comprising academics, design professionals, and press members) from all around the world collectively judging the works. Winners of the A’ Design Award don’t just secure a trophy and a certificate, but receive an entire PR Campaign dedicated towards pushing their career, clout, and even their projects to newer heights. A’ Design Award’s winners and even its participants are included in its annual award book and business network, while additionally contributing to their country’s overall design ranking that paints a holistic picture of how design-centric and design-forward each country is.
The A’ Design Award is currently accepting entries for the 2022 edition of the award program, so go ahead and give your work and career the push it deserves!
Here are some of our favorite Packaging Design winners from the A’ Design Award & Competition 2021. If you have a potential packaging design project that you think is worthy of an award, Click here to register & participate in the A’ Design Awards 2022. Hurry! The regular deadline ends on September 30th, 2021.
Nefer Perfume by Amr Ibrahim
Getting its name from the Egyptian word for beauty, the Nefer perfume bottle embodies sheer elegance on the inside and out. The bottle’s design is derived from the curved lines of the female figure, possibly as an ode to the ancient Egyptian Queen Nefertiti. It sports an incredibly intricate ornate exterior that could only be made through 3D printing, and while the exterior’s job is to captivate, a slim internal chamber holds the fragrant perfume within… like a beautiful soul within a beautiful body.
Zippo Constellation Packaging by Sunhwa Lee and Wenyuan Chen
I’m not one to buy lighters at all, but the best way to get me to buy a whole bunch of them is to arrange them in a packaging as alluring as this! The Zippo Constellation Box Set by Sunhwa Lee and Wenyuan Chen is a complete collection of 12 Zippo limited edition lighters with artwork depicting the 12 zodiac signs (also known as sun signs). The overall circular package has almost a cosmic-calendar-meets-ancient-sundial vibe to it, and it even lights up from the inside, bringing the constellation artwork in the center to life. The packaging is aimed at being a box set, although the designers envisioned that people would want to display it as a collectible too – which is why the circular box comes with a pop-out stand at the back. The lighters dock into the packaging via magnets, and can be popped out whenever you want to use or admire them. Only 100 such box sets are ever going to be made.
Regeneration Flower Tea Packaging by JieLong Wu and Lu Yi
This rather alluring box of teabags actually has more to it than you’d expect. Sure, it’s incredibly pretty to look at, and comes with 6 pyramid-shaped teabags… although the packaging’s also designed in a way to make discarding your teabag easier. Each individual teabag comes enclosed in a tetrahedral handmade paper box, and once you’ve opened the box, taken the bag out, and brewed your tea, you can put the used teabag back inside its paper box and discard it anywhere. Aside from being biodegradable, the handmade paper actually has flower seeds embedded between the paper fibers, and when introduced into soil, uses the tea leaves as fertilizer to grow. In the end, your discarded teabag ends up decomposing and becoming fertilizer for a flowering plant!
Fousu Sock Packing by GaoWei Xin
Modern anti-bacterial socks require modern-looking packaging! The Fousu socks come packaged in a rather sci-fi looking capsule made from recycled paper pulp. The pulp’s formed into the capsule shape using a set of molds (just like how an egg carton is made), although its overall design has a much better finish, which allows you to then print information onto the exterior. Designed to be discarded, each capsule comes with 3 pairs of rolled socks inside. I say discarded, but I’d probably just hold onto the box and use it to efficiently store my socks in the wardrobe!
Mingluye Baijiu Packaging by Wen Liu, Bo Zheng and Weijie Kang
While the alcoholic baijiu is often prepared using fermented sorghum, rice, or even wheat, Mingluye uses fermented mung beans, giving the traditional spirit a distinct flavor and aroma. The Mingluye bottle celebrates its origin by actually resembling the mung bean. The bottle’s overall shape and color bear a close resemblance to the bean, while the label on the front takes after the white germ of the sprouted mung bean! It’s an incredibly beautiful-looking bottle, isn’t it?
Alpine Ancient Trees Tea Packaging by Xiaobin Li, Xingguo Li and Shilin Huang
The Alpine Ancient Trees tea packaging pays respect to the hilly terrain on which tea plantations grow. The incredibly premium box set opens up to reveal two spherical packages of tea leaves nested inside mountains made out of corrugated paper. Once you take the spherical packages of tea out, the box can then be repurposed into a holder for tiny bonsai planters, giving it a new purpose and preventing it from going to waste.
