‘The Golden Bee Skincare’ won the first semi-final of BillerudKorsnäs’ design competition PIDA – Packaging Impact Design Award. The winning packaging concept was designed for a skincare product and won the PIDA Gold Award – the finest prize of the competition – and the distinction ‘Highest level of Innovation.’ The team behind the entry was American design students Jennifer Huynh, Meliza Pascual, Joshua Roberts and Samantha Johnson from Clemson University in South Carolina, USA.“We are very thankful for this opportunity to show our work,” says Meliza Pascual. “We have put a lot of effort into it, and we are very happy for the awards.”

The winning packaging project ‘The Golden Bee Skincare’ responds perfectly to this year’s brief – to create a package that speaks to our senses. The motivation of the jury reads: “The Golden Bee Skincare package delivers on innovation being delightfully inventive and original while also achieving high marks for sustainability and excellent user-friendliness and functionality. The entry offers a highly innovative structure that is highly functional and offers novel on-shelf, unboxing, storing, and sharing attributes. The team invested time in design thinking and exploration, marketing strategy, sustainability life-cycle, supply-chain, and materials analyses that helped their entry shine.”

The design students who won the PIDA Gold Award at the first PIDA event of the year automatically qualify for the grand finale. At the final – that takes place at the Luxe Pack trade show in Monaco on 27 September – an international winner will be appointed. It means that the American design students will be up against the winners of the three other semi-finals; students from France, Germany, and Sweden.

More students awarded

At yesterday’s PIDA event, another three prizes were presented. ‘The Golden Bee Skincare’ was awarded once again and received the Highest Level of Innovation Award with the motivation: “The package delivers an exciting and innovative structure with original, engaging, and thoughtful function. The entry’s structure is extremely innovative and exceptionally inventive.”

The Highest Level of User Friendliness Award went to ‘The Agrumes Florilége,’ created by Julia Nathanson, Sophia Thai och Justin Davidovicz from Rutgers University in New Jersey, USA. A packaging concept for a luxury citrus liqeur. The motivation read: “The package gives a witty and exciting approach to user-friendliness, functionality, and the user experience. The entry features excellent properties designed to awaken the senses.”

The Highest Level of Sustainability Award was presented to Chi Chung Chan from Ravensbourne University in London, UK, for the entry ‘Iwasaki Matcha,’ designed for a complete Japanese tea concept. “The entry makes excellent use of the physical properties of the BK Craft board by featuring the Craft side of the board on the outside of the carton, visually reinforcing the strength and sustainability of the material. Reuse, secondary, and long-term use of this package are artfully incorporated into the design.”

The winners were selected by a jury of prominent industry professionals, who were very impressed by this year’s contestants. “The jurors were so impressed with the thoughtful and exciting concepts presented by the teams in this competition. We discussed and debated the entries at length before determining the winning team in each category. Each participant should be so very proud of the work accomplished under extraordinary circumstances,” says Joey Schmissrauter, chairman of the PIDA USA/UK jury.

A creative arena for the packaging community

BillerudKorsnäs, the company behind PIDA, arranges the competition in cooperation with leading universities and design colleges in the USA, the UK, France, Germany, and Sweden. The competition allows the students to work on an actual packaging design project under the same conditions as an authentic assignment. What’s more, it is also an opportunity for the students to showcase their ideas and creativity to established professionals who attend the events every year to be inspired and meet the packaging designers of tomorrow.

“With PIDA, we want to drive the development of packaging design forward while also establishing a meeting place for the industry and the schools. This year marks the 16th anniversary of the competition, and interest for PIDA grows steadily for every year – at the schools as well as in the packaging business,” says Lena Dahlberg, manager application development paperboard at BillerudKorsnäs.