Teams chose an everyday object, a verb, and an emotion (e.g., an alarm clock that elicits excitement through vibration). Using these three elements, contributors generated unexpected packaging ideas around everyday tools, objects, or containers. Editors narrowed dozens of entries to 20, then paired each with a thematic “twin”—its natural pair or mirror opposite—appearing as either a relationship or a tension. We start with Relationships.
Relationships
Expired
Kuen Chang, Jin Ko — Noun: Medicine · Verb: Expire · Emotion: Disgust
Knowing when medicine is safe to ingest is essential; labels are crowded and hard to read. Like bananas telegraph ripeness and decay, drug packs could visibly show when meds are no longer safe—clear, intuitive cues.
According to some fathers, medication never goes bad. Ever. (And they would be wrong.) The truth is, knowing when medicine is, and respectively is not, safe to ingest is essential.
Current packaging provides more confusion than clues. Labels are congested, hard to read and interpret. Trying to find vital safety information is difficult. Why not turn to bananas for a few simple hints?
Bananas are the perfect source of design wisdom. Those elongated, delicious yellow semi-circles clearly betray signs of readiness for consumption (ripeness) or imminent decay. Why couldn’t over-the-counter and prescription drug packaging do the same? Consumers could vividly and intuitively detect when medicine is no longer safe to take. Save money. Save medicine. Just mind the spots.
Vita Flower
Kuen Chang, Pam Daniels — Noun: Vitamin · Verb: Bloom · Emotion: Happiness
Flintstones Chewables: trusted by moms, loved by kids. Centrum CX: trusted by physicians, loved by pensioners. For the synaptically superior set—those of you in late-adolescence, your odyssey years, or adulthood—there’s now a playful way to monitor your pill-popping regimen.
Vita Flower allows users to arrange all over-the-counter prescription medications in an alluring, floral pattern. The exposure to friends and family members is designed to help promote adherence to a specified drug regimen. Users are less inclined to skip or forget a day when people are watching. And there’s a secondary benefit: it beautifies tables and countertops formerly sullied by amber pill cases or real flowers wilting.
CO(me)
Stephan Merkle, Top Tulyathorn — Noun: Air · Verb: Protect · Emotion: Delight
In the days of stamps and letter writing, C/O read ‘care of.’ These days, the same two letters (CO) look a little less innocent, fault of associations with carbon dioxide (CO2), a greenhouse gas that keeps at least a few climate scientists up at night.
But we produce CO2 every time we exhale. And as the teachings of the Great Buddha remind us, “Nirvana is but a breath away.” Sounds close. We might be able to experience a bit of the sublime if we start sending care packages to strangers or loved ones in a protective vessel filled with our breath. This concept explores that possibility. Breathe in. Breathe out. Transcend greed, hatred, and delusion (but make sure to send the packages via USPS).
City Scent
Rhea Jeong — Noun: City · Verb: Remember · Emotion: Nostalgia
Jerusalem smells of mint and jasmine at sundown. Paris: Guerlain eau de cologne, fresh bread, and bicycle tires with a hint of Gitane tobacco. New York: brown sugar-tossed almonds with hot brick, hair product, and oodles and oodles of greenbacks. Tokyo smells like the future. Every one the world’s most memorable cities exudes a fragrance, a scent, an olfactory profile uniquely its own.
This particular concept tells the story of at least seven of the world’s most memorable cities by bottling specific attributes. Each scent is housed in a simplified form of one iconic structure that defines that city’s skyline. In essence, City Scent transforms the traditional idea of a souvenir from something visual (and tangible) to something more sensual, more ethereal, more directly connected to memory.
98.6 / Chocolet
Joseph Graceffa, Jeremiah O’Leary, Carly Price — Noun: Chocolate · Verb: Warm · Emotion: Love
Hershey’s might have cornered the market on the miniature candy kiss, but lovers of cacao can still find other ways to ‘edibly’ express their feelings for one another. One in particular: this jewelry piece, 98.6 / Chocolet. The pendant grips thin chocolate disks for people to drape around their neck, close to their heart. This softens the candy, improves its texture, and boosts the flavor profile. A loving gesture never felt or tasted quite like it.
Sharing Scent
Andrew Burroughs, Joseph Graceffa, Jeremiah O’Leary — Noun: Scent · Verb: Smell · Emotion: Anticipation
Lights are fast. Candles are slow. Slower even are these embedded-scent candles. Like wooing a lover, spear fishing, or standing in line at the D.M.V., these little wax luminaries teach the principle of patience.
This concept celebrates the notion of waiting. Of anticipation. Of delayed gratification. The scented wax capsule is visible, right out of the box, but inaccessible for a period of ‘burn time.’ Only hints of the scent can be detected until the fragrance center is breached by light, over time. When the scent expires, it leaves behind only a clear candle and a string of cherished memories.
Lux Paper
James Prince, Volker Roos — Noun: Toilet Paper · Verb: Carry · Emotion: Envy
There’s nothing particularly chic about purchasing a 12-pack of ‘extra soft’ or ‘extra strength’ toilet paper and shlepping it around town—even if that town is more familiar with using leaves than a proper roll of Charmin. But, a few simple changes to the plastic wrap (opaque film, vacuum sealed to enhance the forms inside, and straps) might just transform an everyday essential into a luxury good. Or something approaching true luxury—LV and Prada are still several seasons shy of rolling out a proper toilet paper tote.
Rice
Sue Tan, Eric Toyofuku — Noun: Rice Bag · Verb: Carry · Emotion: Pride
Mi is the Chinese character for rice, one of the world’s single most important staple foods. The symmetry and simple structure of this character aligns with its role as the anchor of the Asian diet, feeding the rich and poor alike. The great unifier.
Though rice remains a vital source of nourishment, its packaging looks bland, utilitarian, even coldly industrial. To elevate its role as an everyday hero and push it into modernity, these designs make the grain easier to recognize and carry in urban settings.
Tensions
4G Tapes
Kerry O’Connor, Dominique Ng, Hannes Harms — Noun: Tape · Verb: Resurrect · Emotion: Satisfaction
Acid-washed jeans. Crimped hair. Z-Cavaricci’s. And mixed tapes. At least ones of those deserves resurrection from the dun-colored grave of obsolescence: the mixed tape. Tapes were personal. Intimate. Poetic. And physical. Music-sharing as of late has lost that materiality.
A cardboard cassette tape offers a seductive solution that leverages the advantages of digital music but reclaims the lost element of physicality. Sound tracks can be selected and programmed directly through iTunes. Song lists can be linked to a colorful QR code on the side of the cassette, and listeners need only scan the code from their smart phone to instantly enjoy the personalized line-up. Tapes are environmentally sound, and can be decorated – like the side of your Chucks or your old middle school text books. The smart phone interface resembles a classic Sony Walkman—hit ‘play’ and your mix tape playlist begins. Certain things, we believe, deserve a comeback.
Synthetic Biology
Will Carey, Adam Reineck — Object: Cup · Verb: Grow · Emotion: Love
In the years to come, synthetic organisms will start producing materials that function as both product and packaging. Synthetic biology is already creating fuels and chemicals that serve existing industrial supply chains.
Envision a product that is ‘fixed’ by light: exposure to a specific wavelength causes the organism to morph into a rigid, waterproof material. During shipping and storage, these light-molded cups remain alive but dormant. With exposure to water, the organism hydrates and begins expressing pathways that produce fragrance and flavor compounds, creating an effervescent and probiotic drink. After several uses, the cup walls begin to degrade and the container can be composted.
Leftovers
Karl Abele, Matt Brown, Mark Jones, Michelle Kwasny, Strick Walker — Noun: Leftovers · Verb: Privilege · Emotion: Shame
Often, refrigerators are scarcely more than a morgue for half-eaten food: a cold, lonely place to solemnly view and store the worldly remains of some anonymous life form, pending a proper ground burial. So how might we encourage people to actually eat their leftovers? To savor culinary memories before they’re devoured by mold or ravenous high school students on the post-midnight prowl?
Down with doggie bags and earth-killing ”take-away” containers. Proper packaging ought to feature complete meal and detailed caloric information. They ought to include photos of the original dish; a reminder of the chef or line cook that thoughtfully prepared it for you; the name of the server. Even how much you spent. Suddenly, those leftovers look every bit like something you’d love to eat.
Chopsticks
Gregory Perez, Guoning Hu — Noun: Chopsticks · Verb: Break · Emotion: Guilt
An estimated 25 million trees are chopped down every year in China to support the country’s insatiable appetite for disposable chopsticks: 45 billion pairs per annum. Even with the adoption of policies in certain locales to reduce the use of one-off or wooden chopsticks, the environmental impact on forests is immense. These ¥5,000 (about $750), limited-edition chopsticks remind us that wooden chopsticks are, in fact, costly in more ways than one.
CNDM
Jeremy Innes-Hopkins, Nils-Johan Eriksson — Noun: Condom · Verb: Purchase · Emotion: Embarrassment
Playing on the salacious idea of undressing or ‘unzipping’ for recreational fun, CNDM lets men abandon the clunky geometry of grocery store condoms in favor of a sleeker, sexier love glove. CNDM’s discreet branding, and pocket-friendly form, generates a potent mixture of curiosity and excitement for everyone involved—including the cashier.
Once
Andrew Burroughs, Joseph Graceffa, Jeremiah O’Leary — Noun: Scent · Verb: Anticipate · Emotion: Longing
Drawing inspiration from the Talipot Palm—a monocarphic plant, native to parts of India and Sri Lanka, which flowers a single time over the course of a 30-to-80-year lifecycle—Once blossoms for 24 hours, one time annually. Only a lucky few are fortunate enough to catch a whiff of the bouquet, every year.
To reduce the possibility of missing the moment, Once places people “on notice” as the scent capsules approach bloom, using a series of soft chimes as the days count down from seven. Following the dispersion, the product returns to hibernation, inaugurating the energy-storing process for the next year’s blossom.
Mr. Carcass
Lynda Deakin, Tracy DeLuca, Ian Groulx — Object: Meat · Verb: Divide · Emotion: Happy
Look no further than Jamie Oliver, world food price fluctuations, or the renewed American love affair with farmers markets, and it seems clear: a food revolution is underway. Sharpen your knives, and bring in the butchers—preferably the conscientious ones, like Mr. Carcass, who believes that animals should live well, roam free, eat what their ancestors ate (other than primordial man), steer clear of performance enhancing drugs, and taste…amazing, morsel after morsel. Mr. Carcass supports snout-to-tail dinners, live butchering demonstrations, and informed approaches to shopping for the world’s best flesh. For the slightly squeamish or truly afraid of blood, Mr. C. offers clever wrapping, strong branding, and a reassuring tone to make the meat go down smoothly.
Cigg Seeds
Ben Forman — Object: Cigarette · Verb: Grow · Emotion: Indifference
An estimated 10 million Britons still suck down cigarettes faster than a troupe of aging rockers in rehab straining to cough out another hit tune. In the UK, cigarette butts sully streets and parks everywhere. What if this nasty habit could contribute to, rather than subtract from, the beauty of outdoor spaces? CiggSeeds aim to do precisely that. A variety of smokes outfitted with biodegradable filters that contain wild flower seeds, they sprout and blossom into wildflower meadows when finished and flicked, or deposited on the ground. Butts into blooms. Cigarettes into snowdrops—the floral not frozen variety, to be sure.
Pique
Joseph Graceffa, Jeremiah O’Leary — Object: Toy · Verb: Arouse · Emotion: Excitement
It’s a peephole. It’s a (visual) plane. It’s your private perversion, packaged. Based on predetermined ‘preferences,’ this sleek, little device constantly updates imagery and video clips just for you—or for your paramour.
Or for some unsuspecting picker-upper. When the need for a ‘fix’ arises, simply take a pique.
Light My Ire
Judy Guo, Engin Kapkin — Object: Cigarette · Verb: Resist · Emotion: Apathy
What if prying open a package of cigarettes were difficult right down to the very last grunt? What if gaining access to a single smoke was as hard as solving a Rubik’s cube, blind-folded, one-handed, underwater, disoriented, sleep-deprived, and heavily sedated? Would that help reduce smoking frequency? Might that even help combat the habit, and promote smoking cessation? Just maybe. It’s certainly worth a shot.
Special Thanks
Angelique Ilusorio
Thomas Brisebras
Engin Kapkin
Hannes Harms
Ricardo Figueiroa
