Pro Carton begins the search for the most talented young designers in Europe

Packaging Solutions

Pro Carton, the European Association of Carton and Cartonboard manufacturers, has announced the launch of its 2019 Young Designers Awards. The ninth edition will continue to showcase the innovative and exciting design capabilities of cartonboard, with the winners afforded the opportunity to travel to Sweden to visit the forest and board mill of Stora Enso – one of the world’s leading providers of renewable packaging solutions.

Sustainable packaging has been an important talking point in 2018, with 75% of European consumers saying the environmental impact of a product’s packaging affects their purchasing choice. Pro Carton dedicates its efforts to pioneering the future of sustainable packaging and the awards this year will comprise of four categories: Creative Cartonboard Packaging for All Non-Food Product, Creative Cartonboard Packaging for Food & Drink, Save the Planet and Creative Cartonboard Ideas. Last year’s inaugural Save the Planet award proved a great success and will return in 2019, amidst growing concerns over the damage that some non-sustainable materials and over packaged products have on our environment. 2018’s winning entry embodied the purpose of this award by providing a simple solution to a prime example of over-packaged products – with a tiny cartonboard pack for memory cards.

The Creative Cartonboard Packaging for All Non-Food Product and Creative Cartonboard Packaging for Food & Drink awards will enable student designers to demonstrate that they understand brand alignment and design requirements as well as demonstrating their creative capabilities. The final of these four awards – Creative Cartonboard Ideas – gives designers the chance to enter truly creative and ‘outside the box’ cartonboard solutions outside of the packaging arena. Last year’s winner took a simple, everyday product – hair grips – and designed a stylistic product with Asian flare.

In 2018 Pro Carton doubled the number of award categories, and therefore the number of winners, so that four students will now have the opportunity of visiting Stora Enso as well an international carton converter. All 10 of the finalists along with their tutors will be invited to the Awards Gala Dinner which will be held in Malta on September 19 2019. Discussing the awards, Tony Hitchin, general manager at Pro Carton, said: ‘Last year’s awards were a huge success with over 400 entries from 20 countries. We want even more schools and universities to get involved and to help them we can offer them free cartonboard to produce their prototypes as well as advice, so lecturers should contact us directly to place their order. ‘Sustainable cartonboard packaging is more pertinent than ever before, and it is imperative that we encourage young, talented designers to focus on packaging that has a positive impact on the environment. We are very excited to see the quality of designs for 2019, after the bar was set so high this year!’