Playful and vibrant concept wins PIDA Sweden, Billerud’s packaging design competition

The design project “Bite Botanical Bitters” – a packaging concept for a set of drink mixer flavours – won the PIDA Gold Award at the Swedish PIDA 2022 event. The winning team from Brobygrafiska comprised Herman Rydholm, Sofi Hansson and Julia Abrahamsson.

“We’re in shock!” says Herman Rydholm. “Very surprising. Actually, we started out with an idea of a pyramid shape, but it lacked colour so we thought we had to change. We happened to think of the Venus Flytrap and that was it. We got both colour and shape.”

At PIDA, design students from universities and colleges from seven countries compete with their creative packaging designs. The competition is divided into five separate events: the USA, Sweden, France/Belgium, the UK, China, and Germany/Austria. The winners of the Gold Award at each event will meet in a Grand Finale at Luxe Pack Monaco in October.

Every year, the contestants get a new brief. At PIDA 2022 the title of the brief is “It’s a Wild Life”, encouraging the students to find inspiration in nature for their packaging concepts. As for the winning entry “Bite Botanical Bitters”, the jury’s notes read: “This is something wild. It is playful and vibrant, with colours and shapes that really catch our attention. We love how the source of inspiration has evolved to become this one-of-a-kind packaging.”

More awards

Besides the PIDA Gold Award, three other prizes were presented – for innovation, user friendliness, and sustainability. The winners were selected by a jury of prominent industry professionals, who were amazed by the overall high quality level of the entries and found it a tough task to determine the winners in each category.

“Amardillo” was awarded the Highest Level of Innovation Award. Creative packaging for sunscreen. The entry was designed by Moa Nilsson, Kristin Tebelius and Jenny Malmefeldt from Brobygrafiska in Sunne.

The award for Highest Level of Innovation went to “Armardillo” – an armadillo-inspired pack for sunscreen, designed by Moa Nilsson, Kristin Tebelius and Jenny Malmefeldt from Brobygrafiska in Sunne. The jury liked the “impressive interpretation of the brief” and commented that “The details and execution are of highest class and the result is beautiful and eye-catching.”

The Highest Level of User Friendliness Award went to “Fýri”, a highly functional packaging concept for berry-flavoured biscuits. Designed by Anja Jarochenko and Linnea Byström from Linköping University.

Anja Jarochenko and Linnea Byström from Linköping University won the Highest Level of User Friendliness award. Their entry “Fýri” was a height-adjustable pack containing biscuits with a cranberry/lingonberry flavour. It was praised by the jury for its versatility and intuitive design, describing it as “a concept that suits many products”.

The design project “Bareo” won the Highest Level of Sustainability Award – a packaging solution for potato crisps. Fady Tuma and Teo Simsson made up the design team from Mittuniversitetet.

The Highest Level of Sustainability prize was awarded to Fady Tuma and Teo Simsson from Mittuniversitetet for “Bareo”, a package design for potato crisps with long-lasting taste. The jury noted: “This is a problem solver. It’s an obvious substitute to packaging made of plastics and metal.”

A creative arena for the packaging community

BillerudKorsnäs, the company behind PIDA, arranges the competition in cooperation with leading universities and design colleges in Austria, Belgium, China, France, Germany, Sweden, the UK, and the USA. The competition gives the students an opportunity to work on a real packaging design project under the conditions of an authentic assignment. It’s also an opportunity for design students to show their talent to established professionals who attend PIDA for ideas and inspiration.

“No wonder that many industry professionals see PIDA as the highlight of the year”, says Anders Gathu, Marketing Manager Cartonboard, BillerudKorsnäs. “It’s truly amazing to see so much thoughtful and creative packaging design and so much valuable talent. These are the designers of the future who will shape tomorrow’s brand perceptions, and we are proud of being part of the development of good packaging design. We are very much looking forward to the Grand Finale at Luxe Pack Monaco in October.”