Filed under: Design better packaging
Image courtesy: Nestlé
I have with great curiosity studied the new tool “Compass“ from the Sustainable Packaging Coalition, SPC.
The tool offers designers to compare the environmental impact of various packaging design scenarios based on European or US data.
This is indeed an extremely relevant tool for a great amount of designers and packaging decision makers. That is at least my impression after having attended the conference “Sustainable packaging Innovation & design”, organized by ENG (European Networking Group) in March 2009.
Brand owners (and designers) now need to argue the sustainability of their packaging choices, but they are left alone, as no tools really exist for that purpose. So I am sure they will welcome this initiative!
The tool is available upon subscription but can be evaluated for free for a limited period of time.
I welcome the tool, BUT I am also very concerned that the data delivered from the tool is too general to be really useful.
Everybody involved in Life Cycle Assessments – LCA – constantly stress how difficult it is to compare packaging from the various packaging industries. A clear standard for comparative calculations still needs to be defined. The only standard I know of so far is the PAS2050 developed by Carbon Trust in the UK. PAS2050 was released earlier this year and is right now being evolved further on the European scene.
As part of a packaging manufacturing company, who was among the first in the packaging industry to develop a tool to calculate the carbon footprint of our products, I know that this is a long and tricky road to enter.
One major problem being to get the assumptions right, and another one to handle the country specific systems for waste handling and recycling (just to mention a few!).
The Compass tool uses average industry data, which may return completely wrong figures. Just as one example a country’s type of energy supply will influence a lot on the footprint calculation. Is the energy supply coming from a nuclear plant or a coal fired power plant? The calculation will turn out completely different!
For a packaging manufacturer with a major footprint deriving from the energy usage in the production, the result from the Compass tool may hence be very far from reality.
As this is not taken into consideration in the Compass tool the figures from the tool must be observed and used very carefully.
The general scope of Compass is right, but is it useful? The data being far too inaccurate compared to the data we get from our own tool. Would you make a packaging decision based on such average data?
I believe this is a step in the right direction. And I do hope that the people behind Compass will take it even further. A suggestion from my side would be to allow participating industries to enter their specific data and hence avoid any misinterpretations.
Otherwise it remains a gadget – a tool for fun – and we need more than that!
Want to read more – click here!
Filed under: Capturing new ideas, Design better packaging | Tags: packaging design, structural design
I see some confusion about the term “packaging design” so I have decided to dedicate a few lines here to my personal definition.
Packaging design consists of both design and engineering of the packaging as well as design of the graphics on the packaging.
In general most work referred to as packaging design is related to the graphic work. This part is controlled by the brand owners and advertising agencies. The graphic designers’ packaging design consists of finding the best – existing – packaging and adapt their new artwork to it. You will find excellent examples of this category even on these pages.
In the more rare cases the design work even includes design of the packaging itself. This is where industrial designers – as myself – typically enter.
The economic challenge here is much bigger, as a project normally includes heavy investments in new tooling for the manufacturing of the packaging. But the great advantage is the creation of unique design solutions which identifies the customers very specific needs and ideas. A great example of a company which enlives this attitude is ICI, now a part of Akzo Nobel. This packaging was developed as a co-work between ICI, Superfos and Tinhorse:
Another example is the further development of the SuperSeal packaging which I have been involved in.
SuperSeal offers the advantage of having a sealable and pealable packaging with re-closure but without the need for a sealing foil. An end-user test revealed that there was a need to improve the opening area to make it easier to understand how to open the pack.
The following images show how the corner opening has been transformed into a “curtain” grip, which is very easy to spot and which offers a good grip.
Design or design?
No need to say that customers also sometimes are confused, and have a hard time to find the right development partners.
The skills required to do these 2 kinds of packaging design are very different, but also several overlaps.
Both disciplines for instance call for extensive consumer empathy and behavoural insight.
In an ideal world the two parties would sit around the table when a new packaging design is drafted. This is however far from the case in real life!
I wonder why?
Filed under: Design better packaging
MGA Entertainment, the company that manufactures Bratz dolls, has sympathy for the customers who buy them. “We are in the process of a running change in the packaging that is certain to make the ‘ties, twists, and tape’ problem so much easier to handle,” says Reagan Holmes, the company’s public-relations coordinator. She wouldn’t divulge exactly how the company planned to revamp its packaging. (source: www.consumerreports.org)
This statement was published when MGA got the little precious “Oyster Award” in March 2007 for their bad packaging. No doubt they had to do something. A simple googling shows 193.000 hits on “bratz packaging”. A lot of it contains frustrasted user experience with the product and the company.
My 8 year old daughter was thrilled to find some new Bratz stuff under the Christmas tree, and I quickly noticed the flashy tag on the pack: “New and improved packaging”. It seems that the packaging designers only have limited the number of strings, tapes, glues etc. slightly. The packaging is still completely impossible to open – even for specialists!
The designers have not really considered the design project itself: create an attractive packaging that can be opened without getting injured!
So, this article really breaks my idea of keeping a good spirit on this blog. Sorry!
I just get so sad, when I meet awful stuff like this. It must come to an end!
HAPPY NEW YEAR – My best wishes to all of you.
I hope 2008 will show a lot of good design making.
Please feel free to share your findings.
Filed under: Design better packaging
A little mindstorm:
Imagine yourself at the age of 70. You enter the shower to do your daily freshen-up.
As you reach the time for the hair-wash you realise that (once again!) your wife has tried out a new shampoo brand. She probably did a good bargain as you find two identical bottles on the corner shelf.
But this is a weird kind of product you say. The foam does not bubble – and it is very sticky and difficult to get off again.
Little did you know that:
- You have to wear your glasses in the shower, or
- You have to arrange the bottles in the right order before entering the shower, or
- You have to get your private shelf in the shower, or
- You should stick to a body-shampoo to avoid all confusion.
Elvital: What’s the difference?
Filed under: Design better packaging
Yesterday I was asked if the impact of packaging design on our shopping behavior will increase the coming years?
It will! It simply has to!
Quite a few consumers will stick to the good old stuff completely out of date… But they are also influenced, aren´t they?
As designers we have the constant obligation to investigate consumer preferences and behavior. And the brand owners are learning the importance of this little by little.
So the better we get at transforming consumer insight into eye-catching design, the more the design will influence on our (shopping) behavior.
ISO coffee design: Romeo Vidner, http://www.vidner.com/
Peter Larsen coffee: ?
