Adventures in packaging design

Paper bag making tutorial

"Gustoso", which means tasty in Italian, is a Gelato and Sweets Line that aims to satisfy your taste for ice cream and sweets. Gustoso incorporates old Italian designs of the Art Nouveau period into the contemporary design of today. Gustoso is more than just a simple Italian Gelato brand; it plays with the combination of unexpected colors, pattern designs of old table-cloths, etc. in order to combine two different periods of time and bring to life the satisfaction of indulging. The brand aims to give the costumer the pleasure of an unforgettable experience through combining several sophisticated flavors to satisfy the costumer's taste. The products include several flavors of Gelato, Syrups, Milkshakes and Cookies.

"This is a packaging project for a Brooklyn based rooftop garden called Eight. This garden is based in Sunset Park, Brooklyn which is a neighborhood made up of immigrants of Chinese decent. The garden is named after the number 8, which is known as a symbol for wealth and prosperity in Chinese culture. The neighborhood lies not-so-coincidentally on 8th Avenue in Brooklyn.  The design language is inspired by Chinese calligraphy, which valued the balance of order and dynamism. It also uses the direction of writing and reading in old chinese scripts - top to bottom, right to left.  The patterns are inspired by the region where the majority of the immigrants are from, Fujian, China, which is made up of primarily mountainous areas. Chinese characters for mountain, water and fields are also used to bring forward the geography of the region."

- Esther Li

"Development of a packaging for a fictive flowering tea brand Flowering tea or blooming tea is a traditional chinese product consisting of high quality tea leaves and a flower bound together in an artistic way. The packaging protects the content and stages chinese tradition and modernness through materials and graphics. There were three kinds produced due to different flowers having an individual effect to body and soul. They differentiate in the used patterns which support the effect visually. The outer box consisting of MDF shows a glimpse to the inner colored paper box containing the blooming tea. The patterns were developed according to Chinese lattice windows and visualize the traditional character of the product. Every part of the packaging can be open easily through resealable mechanisms supporting an easy operation. The graphics and colors are designed very clean showing the high quality character of the product and a balance to the ornamental sides of the outer box. Furthermore the box can be reused as a tea light saving the environment. The packaging manages a good mixture between traditional and modern form language in harmony with the core values of the brand."

-  Alexander Stöckel