Winners chosen in Iggesund design challenge to improve consumer packaging

Earlier this year, Iggesund Paperboard, in conjunction with American crowd-sourcing company Crowdspring, launched the project for designers to suggest ways to make everyday consumer packaging more sustainable by replacing plastic, glass and metal with paperboard. Iggesund used the example of sandwich packaging, which a decade ago was almost exclusively made of plastic but now paperboard packaging is increasingly common.

The Crowdspring platform was used as a means to collect these ideas. The result of the project was almost 200 design proposals, with three selected to receive a reward. Iggesund Paperboard has opened dialogs with more designers about being able to use their creations in various contexts.

One of the winning entries is a packaging system for rolls of toilet or kitchen paper, submitted by Maikel Roberts of Barcelona, Spain, which sees an upgrade from plastic packaging to paperboard and allows more products to be loaded on every pallet, and to create better exposure at the point of sale.

Another, submitted by Jessica Bergdahl, Moa Ahlström and Linnea Löfgren, first-year students at Nackademin in Stockholm, Sweden, is tri-function crisp packaging. As packaging, it protects its contents better than a traditional bag and can be unfolded to function as a serving bowl. The lid, which is used to close the packaging, can be used to serve dip in.

The final winning entry, from Bulgaria’s Alpha Design, is a proposal for a holder and protective cover for e-book readers. This could be used to provide versioned/personalized covers that reflect the content of the e-reader, as well as a lower cost alternative to e-reader holders and covers currently available.

‘We’re overwhelmed by the enthusiasm that greeted our project, both from the participating designers but also the attention it has received in the press,’ said Staffan Sjöberg, public relations manager at Iggesund Paperboard. 'And of course we’re pleased, because one of our aims was to show more designers what they can do with paperboard in general and our products, Invercote and Incada, in particular.

‘We hoped to see some local variations where we could distinguish differences between countries and parts of the world. But we lucked out there – the vast majority of the entries were makeovers of products from global brands.’