Pentawards, the world’s most prestigious competition dedicated exclusively to packaging design, has unveiled the winners of its annual global competition at the Pentawards Gala Ceremony, held at De Kromhouthal, Amsterdam.
From radical beauty innovations to game-changing sustainable bottles and evocative cultural storytelling, this year’s winners prove that packaging is no longer just a vessel but an arena for creativity, identity and progress.
The prestigious Diamond Award was awarded to Established (United States) for its work on Tilt – a breakthrough in beauty packaging and the first makeup line to earn the Arthritis Foundation’s Ease of Use Certification. By placing accessibility at the heart of its design, Tilt marks a turning point: packaging conceived for people living with chronic pain, mobility challenges, or low vision from the very beginning, rather than adapted afterwards. It’s a reinvention of beauty packaging that makes glamour more inclusive – without compromising on elegance or desirability.
Every element was reconsidered for everyday ease – from shorter mascara wands that steady the hand and minimise tremors, to silicone-coated surfaces that improve grip, and soft-close magnets that make opening and sealing effortless for users with reduced dexterity.
“Winning the Diamond Award for the second time is an incredible honour for our studio. Creating Tilt Beauty has been a labour of love and one of the most important projects we have taken on in the past 20 years, in that we hope that its pioneering approach to making beauty accessible, will have ripple effects throughout the industry so that we see other brands following suit. We are so grateful to the Pentawards Jury and Team for recognizing this project with such a prestigious award,” said Sam O’Donahue, co-founder, Established NYC.
“This project really showcased the art of accessibility. Not only does it feel stylish, desirable and modern, it’s just really cool that accessibility and inclusive design have been embedded into this product from start to end,” said Marc Powell, Global Accessibility Centre of Excellence Lead, Unilever
The NXT-GEN Award, which champions rising talent, was awarded to Calenton Hot Sauce by The Logo Lassie (UK). This bold, fiery student concept blends vibrant design with family-owned authenticity, showcasing the fresh creativity of the next generation of designers.
A line-up of Platinum Winners illustrated the breadth of innovation across global sectors:
Beverages: Johnnie Walker Blue Label Ultra by Johnnie Walker (UK) – the lightest 70cl whisky bottle ever produced. This design does more than trim weight: it redefines what luxury in spirits packaging can mean. For decades, heft has been equated with prestige, but Blue Label Ultra proves that true refinement lies in balance; elegance without excess – a bold statement for the premium drinks sector.
Commenting on the project, Jury member Zoe Green, co-founder and executive creative director of Co-Partnership said, “I love how progressive, innovative and forward-thinking this project is. It represents decision making that inspires not just the entire brand but the packaging industry, setting a standard of how we should be thinking about things such as light-weighting glass and producing packaging going forward.”
Food: Pueblo by Simple Packaging Studio (Spain) – Cold meat packaging rarely makes a statement beyond utility, but Pueblo turns that expectation on its head. Inspired by the cultural resonance of Spanish village life, the design elevates what was once seen as humble or provincial into a point of pride. Stripped-back, textural, and rooted in heritage, the pack brings authenticity to the fore while challenging stereotypes of rural identity. Pueblo is a design manifesto that restores dignity to “village” origins and reconnects consumers with provenance through clarity and simplicity.
Body, Health & Beauty: L’entropiste – Master of Disorder by Centdegres (France) – Perfume packaging has long been bound by codes of refinement, symmetry, and allure, but L’entropiste thrives in disruption. Centdegres imagined a radical fragrance house that celebrates chaos as its creative currency, producing a visual and structural identity that fractures traditional perfumery tropes. Every detail works to destabilise expectations: from layered, deconstructed graphics to asymmetry that suggests both disorder and liberation. The result is not just a container for scent, but a provocative design concept that positions fragrance as rebellion – bold, masterful, and impossible to ignore.
Sofia Kalligeri, senior marketing manager at Colgate Palmolive said of the design, said “What I loved the most about this project is the way it uses minimalism to create disruption. Its unique structural design combined with material choices and well thought out details create such an unexpected result that stays true to the product’s concept.”
Brand Identity & Connected Packaging: Stella McCartney x Veuve Clicquot by Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin (France) – A fashion house renowned for conscious design meets Champagne’s grande dame in a collaboration that fuses luxury with material innovation. The identity centres on a next-gen, 100% vegan leather made from grape stems, translating vineyard by-products into a premium tactile signature. It’s a statement of values as much as aesthetics: craftsmanship, circularity, and brand storytelling aligned in one confidently modern system.
Home, Leisure & Other Markets: Dwell Dripper for Verve Coffee Roasters by Zenpack (United States) – Designed to travel as well as it brews, the Dwell Dripper’s packaging takes cues from paper-bag lunches and accessory bags to create a friendly, take-anywhere unboxing. A single-part dieline streamlines production and reduces waste, while the range launches in seven colours with a matching coffee scoop engineered as an extension of the brewer itself – mirroring its angles and radii for a cohesive, durable, and easy-to-use system.
Professional Concepts: AVANCE by Gentlebrand (Italy) – A limited-edition perfume collection inspired by chess, AVANCE plays with the game’s tension between passion, power, and mystery. The concept translates strategy and symbolism into form and finish, giving each fragrance a distinctive presence while inviting the wearer into a more enigmatic, cerebral world of scent – a visual and tactile code for decoding emotion.
Sustainable Design: Vivomer Dropper by Shellworks (United Kingdom) – The cosmetics mainstay gets re-engineered from the ground up: a home-compostable dropper that performs like plastic in use but breaks down within 52 weeks, leaving no trace. Built on Shellworks’ Vivomer platform and free of fossil fuels, the design tackles mixed-material droppers that resist disassembly and typically end up in landfill – proving high-function packaging can also be high-impact sustainability.
“Not only was this project considering innovation, end of life and a full packaging scale, it was really looking at a groundbreaking innovative way to penetrate an already saturated market. It’s changing the way we look at consumption, it’s changing the way consumers look at usage and how we package products,” said Sebba Alqetrani, packaging design, branding, and sustainability professor at FIT and Adjunct Packaging Engineering Professor at Rutgers.
Adam Ryan, head of Pentawards, said, “What shines through this year is how packaging design touches lives – whether by making beauty more accessible, cutting waste in everyday products, or telling cultural stories through design. It’s proof that innovation can be practical, responsible and visually unforgettable.”