Now in its 7th year, The Dieline Awards 2016 presented by Neenah Packaging is an international design competition recognizing the world's best consumer product packaging design. It exist as a way for both designers and society at large to more easily recognize the value of innovative packaging in everyday life. We have gathered a highly esteemed jury of structural packaging, design, branding, and consumer product experts to judge submissions based on three vital design components: Creativity, Marketability, and Innovation.
“Packaging design is way more than just selling a product or making something look pretty on a store shelf. Whether we realize it or not, packaging plays an integral role in every life, every day, all around the world. Good packaging contains, preserves, protects, and transports the food and items we need to live. However, great packaging—like The Dieline Awards winners—has the ability to change how we think and completely alter the way we interact with the products we consume.”
- Andrew Gibbs, Founder of The Dieline
This year especially, the awards program highlights the ability the industry has to adapt to the world's ever-changing needs. Demographics, economics, consumer tastes—these factors quite literally shape the packaging of today and tomorrow. By uncovering these trends, we take the pulse of the general public.
So what do we see? An abundance of information, choice, and messages. A small screen rests between us and the rest of the world, and this has many benefits—but the flip-side is that it is harder than ever to find exactly what we want. People feel divided, distracted, and burdened by endless options. We see incredibly busy people individuals who value both their jobs and social lives, smaller households and more 1-parent families, as well as an increased awareness of health and waste.
The message expressed again and again in this year’s winners is that consumers feel overwhelmed. People today want and need simple, clear, digestible messages—because that is all we have time for and all we can handle. This antidote pushes us toward designs that focus on simplifying. The task of the designer this year was clear: how can you articulate the value of the product in simple, approachable terms and connect with the consumer through the torrent of information?
The answer manifested itself in what we call Essentialism: focus on the essential, eliminate the rest.
We invite you to explore the winners and trends of The Dieline Awards 2016. This year we recognized 41 winners across 12 categories who were awarded a 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place award. Discover the four trends we have identified, each one a different expression of Essentialism.
Our winners prove that packaging today can be designed to cut through the chaos.
Best of Show
TÅPPED birch tree water
Horse
Trend: As Simple As Possible
Although a traditional springtime drink in Finland and other parts of the world such as Canada, tree waters are a new concept to consumers in the UK. Clarity of product communication was therefore paramount. To create the birch water market in the UK, the brand needed to educate consumers, so innovative attention-grabbing packaging was vital.
Editor's Choice
Ultimaker 2 Go-Packaging for the maker community
Flex/Design
Trend: Shelf Life
Small in size, but big in 3D printing abilities and reliability, the Ultimaker 2 Go is one of the most powerful little printers around. And with a compact design, it’s great for makers on the go. We designed a packaging concept that let the machine fully live up to its name.
Studio of the Year
mousegraphics
Design is an endless exercise in communication. mousegraphics is a creative office that realizes this basic principle since 1984, and in a way that concerns each one of its partners / clients separately. With a creative team consisting today of ten designers, an illustrator, a photographer, a creative strategist and an office manager.
Sustainable
Paper Water Bottle
Trend: As Simple As Possible
Paper Water Bottle® - the 1st of its kind in the world - meets both consumer demand and brand owner requirements for real eco-friendly solutions. Paper Water Bottle is a pulp packaging and product company integrating best-in-class strategic assessment, consumer insight, creative and technical design and development, material science, technical and engineering design and development through production and distribution.
Fresh & Prepared Foods
1st Place: Wagamama Takeaway Packaging
Pearlfisher
Trend: As Simple As Possible
Established in 1992, wagamama has become a popular food destination on the British high street by making Japanese-inspired cuisine accessible for the West. Famed for challenging what we ate, how we sat side-by-side and promoting a new casual dining code, wagamama needed to reignite their challenger approach when it came to takeaway.
Fresh & Prepared Foods
2nd Place: Domilovo Eggs
Getbrand
Trend: Ornately Old-Fashioned
Domilovo translated from Russian is sweet home. Design concept was inspired by a henroost. It is actually a nest made of rough pressed cardboard — new shape which stirs pleasant emotions and enriches brand communication - a pure fresh farm product.
Fresh & Prepared Foods
3rd Place: Kadokuwa Kanroni
Ono and Associates Inc.
Trend: As Simple As Possible
Ono and Associates Inc. is an architecture and design office by Takeshi Ono and Ayako Ono, globally operating based in Toyota, Japan. By the free idea, we are working broadly in various domains, such as architectural design, graphic design, and product design.
Dairy, Spices, Oils, Sauces, Condiments
1st Place: Olive by Gino's Garden
Marios Karystios
Trend: Shelf Life
Gino’s garden organic olive oil from the region of Rihaneh in Lebanon.
Each year, a limited quantity of olive oil is handpicked and cold pressed within six hours, making to the finest quality of olive oil one could get from the grove of Gino Haddad.
In order to reflect the organic approach and limited production,
a custom made bottle was specially designed to portray the uniqueness of Gino’s olive oil.
Dairy, Spices, Oils, Sauces, Condiments
2nd Place: KOPOS | Limited Edition
Chris Trivizas
Trend: Shelf Life
“Andriotis” company is a family business, specializing in the trade and processing of olive oil, for over 50 years. The characteristic quality of our products is created by a solid know-how and authentic, personal care.
Dairy, Spices, Oils, Sauces, Condiments
3rd Place: MELIES
Bob Studio
Trend: Ornately Old-Fashioned
Olive oil and vinegar in one! Melies is a new premium gift pack of high quality olive oil and vinegar in two identical bottles that fit perfectly together. The label, which is inspired by the nymphs Melies (mythological female creatures) and was initially designed for the olive oil, now embraces the two bottles in one but is also perforated in the middle to easily separate them in two.
Confectionary, Snacks, Desserts
1st Place: Fortnum & Mason- Chocolate Coated Biscuits
Together Design
Trend: Ornately Old-Fashioned
Since the founding of their first store in London's Piccadilly in 1707, Fortnum & Mason have been delighting customers all over the world with experiences of pleasure that make the everyday special. From the products on their shelves to their five restaurants and world famous tea salon, everything they do is informed by their passion for and knowledge of the spectacular and the distinctive – and their aim to bring something incredible and incredibly different to everyone who encounters Fortnum & Mason.
Confectionary, Snacks, Desserts
Maitre Choux Branding and Packaging
Monogram
Trend: Geometry 101
Maitre Choux is the first and only choux pastry specialist patisserie in the world. It is a modern version of a French patisserie, redesigned to cater to the most discerning of tastebuds. Every day and with a rigorous precision, the Three Michelin star experienced chef Joakim Prat bakes exquisitely decorated premium eclairs, choux and chouquettes at their location in South Kensington - the first of many planned for future expansion.
Confectionary, Snacks, Desserts
3rd Place: Brown Sugar 1st's Coco Cookie
Keiko Akatsuka & Associates
Trend: Geometry 101
The coco cookies made by Brown Sugar 1st. are pop and cute tasting like 'LOCO' in Hawaii. And these are all organic, so happy sweets! Anyway, good foods should be fashionable and kind for girls with their clutch bag.
End of Part 1