The winners of the 2020 Pro Carton Young Designers Award were recently announced at the event's first-ever virtual ceremony on 7 October.
Pro Carton
A collage of the four winning designs. In order left to right: Max Gugenhan, Max Klieblinger, Nora Karl and Gabriela Butincu.
The event was hosted by Pro Carton, The European Association of Carton and Cartonboard Manufacturers (EACCM) and the European Carton Makers Association (ECMA).
The event was another record-breaker despite the coronavirus pandemic, with over 550 designed being submitted from 25 different countries across Europe. Prizes were awarded in four categories:
- Save the planet
- Creative cartonboard packaging for Food & Drink
- Creative Cartonboard packaging for all other products
- Creative cartonboard ideas
The first award was gifted to Max Gugenhan from Austria, whose cardboard pads were designed to reduce plastic waste generated from the shipping of small and fragile items such as electronic devices. The judges were impressed with its innovative design.
The second award was presented to Gabriela Butincu from Romania for her easy-to-use flour box design. Its simple practicality impressed the judges as it has an innovative flour sieve built into the pack.
Discussing the product, one of the judges said: "It provides the perfect example on how a carton box can incorporate different functionalities without requiring any specialist skills or additional tools from its user."
Laurenz Keibliinger, another Austrian student was awarded the third prize with his ZIG ZAG ZIG design - a knife pack designed to be easy to open and provided maximum visibility for the product.
The fourth award went to Nora Karl from Germany, who designed an intuitive and environmentally tampon pack that aims to save the environment at a global level. The design means that each tampon features a folded sanitary disposable bag, which allows the user an alternate means of disposing of them.
Also, a newcomers' award was given to Yana Malakovskaya from Samara State Technical University in Russia - a university who have failed to win any award prior. Her entry provides sustainable packaging for nuts and snacks, aiming to appeal to both children and adults.
The design was inspired by the opening of a bird's beak, where the user applies pressure to the side of the packaging, which will open the beak and reveal the contents.
Tony Hitchin, General Manager of Pro Carton, said: “We are delighted with the number of entries to this year’s Young Designers Award; it is great to see that students have been proactive during the coronavirus pandemic lockdowns. The number of high-quality submissions we received was astonishing and demonstrated the creativity of the younger generation, as well as the passion which many students have for a better future with sustainable packaging”.
“The year-on-year growth of the Awards is always welcomed, but a 20% increase in entries from last year is a significant achievement given these unpredictable times. We’d like to thank all those who entered for making another successful competition and helping us in our goal to promote the use of cartonboard as it plays a crucial role in encouraging brands to support a circular economy.”
Cartonboard refers to a specific brand of packaging relying on a multilayer paper-based material with three or more layers of fibre derived from wood, or other recycled materials such as paper.
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