It’s all about Packaging
BNO Summer School 2016
By Daisy van der Genugten
Creative Intern at VBAT
VBAT is part of BNO NEXTpack, an initiative by the Association of Dutch Designers to bring packaging design in the Netherlands to a higher level and attract more young talent towards this discipline. Packaging was also the first topic on the agenda of BNO Summer School, and naturally VBAT send all their interns to join in and learn from the experts.
The idea of summer school is exciting, but meeting interesting people and learning more about Packaging made me even more enthusiastic. I’m happy to say that it turned out as inspiring as I hoped.
Steven de Cleen kicked of the day with a lecture about his specialism (packaging). Steven is the director/founder of Proud design in Amsterdam and he really showed us his passion for packaging and how he believes that every brand has something to be proud of. He got me excited at the “hot or not” moment, where we browsed through his collection of photos from packaging he encountered whilst visiting other countries. Asking us the question “hot or not” made the whole lecture more interactive, since we all have a different opinion of what makes good packaging good.
“Beauty is important in food but in life as well”. — Steven de Cleen
Sabrina Mantjes told us about Millford in a more general way. They are with 30 creative thinkers and are focussing on brand identity, communication and strategy. Their main goal is to make the world more beautiful. Whereas Sabrina talked about Millford in general, Tahir Idouri told us more about the process behind the “AH Biologisch” case.
He showed us before and after photos and I was impressed by how the look and feel became more dynamic and biologic. Millford created more than 500 packaging designs in less than six months!
Whereas Proud design and Millford are focussing on packaging design you will see in stores, etc., Flex design is specialized in structural packaging, which I didn’t know anything about. I think this was my favourite part of the day because it really opened my eyes and made me look at packaging from a different perspective. Abke told us about “De Ultimaker” (3d printer) case and how they had problems with sending their printers to America. While transporting, the product often fell down and almost every time some parts of the machine broke. To solve the problem, they created a special shape out of EPP plastic foam because it is lightweight, shock resistant and it’s able to last for a while. This makes it easy to re-use the packaging as a carrying case, which allows you to easily pick up your 3D printer and print at other locations as well. They even created extra objects you can print with your 3D printer and add to your case. I know this is just a fun fact but it does make it stand out.
Adel Kassem, Creative Director at Reggs, showed us his perspective of how packaging will look like in the future. He talked us through 3 different scenarios:
Self-sustainable. A new social lifestyle, good for the environment, and people will be able to download and customize packaging.
On demand. Where people will have a stronger voice. There will be more robotics, technology, augmented reality etc.
Biotechnology/science. Which gives us the opportunity to investigate further than what’s normal to us, like edible type…
The fact that Adel believes in the three scenarios really represented itself by the case he showed us afterwards: the interactive Heineken bottle. The challenge was to create an interactive and low-cost bottle to create a memorable beer experience. They used smart designing and engineering to create a bottle that reacts to movement.
Design director Rob Deurenberg from VBAT started with a talk, followed by a workshop. He used a banana as a metaphor to explain that being unique is the key to good packaging. He reinforced this theory by showing a couple of cases, one of them was Apple Bandit. I like how he showed us the process behind the cases, including lots of different stages and sketches.
After his talk we started with the workshop. We all brought a precious object, for which we had to design a packaging.
Rob planned out three stages, and made is answer questions like:
1. Object — what’s the story?
2. Me — What does the object say about me?
3. Target — Who is your target audience?
The questions really helped us to create multiple concepts in a short time. Unfortunately, there was no time to further develop the concept, but I am really excited about this idea, so I will develop and execute it anyway. I know that lots of other participants are going to do the same thing…
The workshop really helped the participants to get to know each other and get the conversation started. After a while everyone was busy being creative, and talking about their objects etc. It turned out to be an inspiring day with lots of interesting people and projects.
If you got excited now, and if you consider joining BNO Summer School, check out the agenda here. Maybe you still can get on board. It’s highly recommended.
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written by Daisy van der Genugten
Creative Intern at VBAT
edited by Connie Fluhme
PR at VBAT
