Cal Poly Students Sweep National Packaging Design Competition

Four teams of Cal Poly students took home first-, second- and third-place awards and an honorable mention in this year’s Institute of Packaging Professionals (IoPP) Ameristar Student Packaging Awards Competition.

The interdisciplinary teams combined industrial technology and packaging students with art and design students to create packaging solutions for a variety of consumer needs. Each team developed a physical prototype of their product complete with branded graphics.

“[Cal Poly’s] work is truly inspiring to our student community and packaging professionals,” said Jane Chase, chair of the AmeriStar competition judging panel and IoPP board member. “It gives students at the other packaging schools something to shoot for when we conduct our AmeriStar Packaging Awards 2017.”

The teams will be honored at IoPP’s industry conference PackExpo in November.

The first-place team created Jimmy Hats, a new approach to traditional condom packaging. Jimmy Hats feature a new design of the condom wrapper itself, and a sleek, branded box that differentiates it from competitors on the store shelf.

Another Cal Poly team took second place for The Merry Seedsters. The product featured seeds embedded in compostable paper strips to make planting easier. The design also doubled as garden labels to identify the planted vegetables.

A third Cal Poly team earned third place for its sushi packaging concept, Oishi. Made of low-cost, biodegradable materials such as paper-molded pulp, Oishi is a convenient and sustainable package that protects the sushi roll and doubles as a stackable tray with compartments for sauces and chopsticks.

Cal Poly students also received an honorable mention for their product, Cowler, which provides a convenient and easy way to spread cream cheese on the go with single-serving packages of different flavors. The lid of the package doubled as a disposable spreading tool.

The student projects were developed in Professor Javier de la Fuente’s IT 435: Packaging Development class and Professor Mary LaPorte’s ART 437: Graphic Design III class. De la Fuente, LaPorte, and industrial technology and packaging instructor Irene Carbonell served as student advisors.