Dutch Packaging Design

In De Etende Mens (Food Culture: Eating by Design) Premsela explores how design can enable us to make the changes to our food chain that are necessary to ensure a healthy future. Mediamatic’s High Density Aquaponics Edifice and the Diesel Kantine (a collaboration with João Negro) are featured in the exhibition.
The exhibition De Etende Mens showcases work by designers who concern themselves with the relationship between design, food, and (the origins of) what we eat. Curated by Marije Vogelzang, the works on display map people’s complex relationship with food and make visitors aware of how our food is produced.
Throughout the year, Premsela offers educational activities in connection with the Designhuis exhibitions for students in Dutch secondary and higher education. De Etende Mens is on view until January 6, 2013 at the Designhuis in Eindhoven. The exhibition is open from Tuesday till Sunday, from 11.00-18.00. Entrance fee is 5,-. Go to the Designhuis website for more information.

An international roundup of contemporary packaging design by Taschen: On sale soon!
Packaging is a highly underrated art form. As the first thing a consumer sees when looking at a product, the packaging can make or break a sale. Every year, the Pentawards celebrate the art of the package by presenting awards to designs from around the world. Featuring a selection of over 400 works from 30 countries, this book brings together all the Pentawards winners from 2011 and 2012. This well of inspiration is not just aimed at design and marketing professionals but anyone with an interest in the creative process of packaging.
The editor: Pentawards is the first and only worldwide competition dedicated to packaging design in all its forms, open to anyone associated with its creation and/or marketing. Aside from prize-giving, Pentawards’ mission is the worldwide promotion of packaging design among companies, media, economic and political authorities, and the general public. Further information: www.pentawards.org

The packaging design for Disney Cars baloney and liver paté was created by Stepfive, commissioned by Zwanenberg Food Group. This delicious sandwich filling for children appeals not only to the youngest ones. Due to it’s strong presence, it also looks very desirable on the shelf. Disney Cars makes lunch and breakfast even more fun!

The characteristic brown beer bottle will turn just as green as the bottles that Heineken sells worldwide. The Brown bottle is a relic of Dutch appointments made decades ago to redeem deposit-bottles. Brown glass is recycled by most Dutch brewers, so it doesn’t matter which Brewer is taking in a bottle. Green glass is much less established. First, the green bottle was intended as an export bottle, but over the years it has become the color of the Heineken brand. The exchange operation began twenty years ago. In 1992 the Red cap disappeared, six years afterwards the yellow crates turned green and since 2000 all Lightboxes are green as well.

After a successful redesign of Look-O-Look’s Family Bags, Flowpacks and Toppermix, the redesign and packaging for the international Mix Bags of Look-O-Look is done by Stepfive Communication & Design too. The Dutch candy producer with “The most delicious candies in one bag” wanted a fun and diverting bag with small flowpacks in it, appealing to all family members, young and old. These Mix Bags differ from the other Look-O-Look bags by having small and handy portion packs in each mix bag. Each different bag has its own colour coding, visuals of aforementioned small portion packs/flowpacks (drawn in realistic style) and a large window for optimal visibility of the delicious candies.

Stepfive created new packaging design for Maître Paul’s MiniMoments range, a range of small pastries that are the perfect treat for ‘those special little moments’. The MiniMoments are nice to give and fun to get! The goal was to create a visually appealing and recognizable range.

This years Dutch Design Week will take place from the 20th until the 28th of October. This eleventh edition offers a unique glimpse into the future of design thanks to the endless creativity of hundreds of renowned designers and young talents from The Netherlands.
Over 1,500 designers display their work ranging from graphic design, industrial design, packaging design, spatial design, textiles, fashion, architecture, sustainable responsible business design and design management & trends. There are 85 different locations housing more than 300 events. Besides exhibitions, there are numerous lectures, workshops, fashion shows and seminars.

This year 200,000 visitors are expected to visit the Dutch Design Week.

Dutch Designweek 2012, Eindhoven – The Netherlands

In addition to this restyling, a new organic cream yoghurt (with fruits) packaging design was created for Dutch company Weerribben Zuivel. Fresh and natural visuals on the packaging are showing us the origin of this organic cream yoghurt: National Park ‘De Weerribben’ in The Netherlands. These visuals and the coloured shopping list on top derives from the complete restyling by Stepfive of all the other Weerribben products and herewith makes it into a coherent and appetizing product range. Also to distinguish the cream yoghurts from the other yoghurts, we’ve added visuals of the fruits used in the yoghurt.

Ever thought about just how persuasive packaging can be? Supermarkets use carefully designed packaging to influence customers’ perceptions of their products. But does it work? It was tested with chocolate chip cookies on two groups of people, one group tasted and rated the cookies without seeing any of the packaging, while the other group did the same thing while the packets were shown beforehand. Read about the results here.
Packaging is one way of making a product get your attention. But there’s more. Every element of the in-store environment is carefully deliberated over; from the general layout to the position of products on the shelf and even the smell and sound.
Read more about psychological tactic in stores here.

For the Dutch brand Kips, Stepfive created two reclosable ‘out of home’ freshpacks for cheeses and meats including printable stickers. Each freshpack contains ten slices and is designed with an apparent color setting (yellow for cheeses and red for meats). The packs have a basic, clean design with clear Kips branding for optimum product visibility that convey top quality products. Kips is a brand of Zwanenberg Food Group.