Billerud inspires students in design competition

- Students taken on tour of Swedish mill to see material production process as part of initial stages of design project

 

- Students win trip to Berlin, while brand now thinking about how to proceed with ideas gained from the SPICE: 12 project

 

Fiber-based packaging was an integral part of the entries to the SPICE: 12 design competition organized by material supplier Billerud, design agency NINE and the Berghs School of Communication.

 

2012 is the third year that SPICE, standing for Sustainable Packaging & Innovation Communication Event, has been organized by the trio.

 

This year’s competition focused on improving the packaging for food manufacturer Semper’s baby food and the associated jars.

 

A dozen teams were made up from 52 students, who spent six weeks working on designs to suit the brief.

 

To start the competition, Billerud took the 52 students on a tour of its Gruvön mill in Sweden to take them through the production process of fiber-based packaging.

 

The winning entry was designed by Emma Fällman, Jesper Olsson, Kajsa Jacobsen and Louise Persson (pictured, below), and included FibreForm, which is produced at the Gruvön site, due to the tactile nature of the material.

 

Billerud FibreForm is a formable, sustainable and tactile material. Consisting of 100 percent primary fiber, it is approved for contact with food and can be coated with a wide range of films to protect against light, moisture, bacteria and other impurities.

 

It is suitable for both flexo and offset printing processes.

 

Jimmy Nyström, business development director at Billerud, said all of the teams chose to use fiber-based materials in their packaging, and while there was no requirement for or against any substrate in the competition, it was pleasing to see the students using natural materials instead of plastic or foil for the primary packaging, and then combining multiple substrate types to produce award-winning packaging concepts.

 

The jury described the entry as, ‘a concept that went the whole way.

 

‘A fresh approach to the development of packaging, really delightful illustrations and a presentation video on the contentment of baby food that went straight to the heart.’

 

Kajsa Jacobsen and Jesper Olsson said: ‘We began with Semper’s symbols: the red colour, the child. The emotional expression. And then we built on them.’

 

The four students in the winning team will now take a trip to Berlin, Germany for their prize, while all the prototypes and presentations will be featured in an exhibition at Semper’s headquarters in Sundbyberg, central Sweden.

 

Nyström said: ‘The importance of product packaging is growing all the time.

 

‘SPICE fits in well with Billerud’s customer offer: to develop smart, sustainable, value adding packaging. It gives us a unique opportunity to build a close relationship between the designers of the future and our products.’

 

He added that as a design competition for students, the judging criteria did not include the printing or other production processes of the packaging, with that a part of the brand's remit as it decides what to do with concepts it has received. 

 

Semper’s group brand manager Marina Eriksdotter said: ‘It’s been a really exciting journey to follow the work of the students. And the results have exceeded all my expectations; to come up with such well thought-out and exciting design concepts in such a short time is impressive.

 

‘[Now] we will sit down in peace and quiet and think about how to proceed with all the ideas we have gained from the SPICE project.’

 

Read more on packaging design tools and concepts in Package Print Worldwide issue #4, 2012.

 

Register online for free and you can access the Package Print Worldwide back catalogue, with issue #4 2012 available to view in your web browser from November 8.

 

Alternatively, email editor@packprintworld.com to request a hard copy of the latest issue.

 

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