New challenges, contestants and awards in PIDA 2017
PIDA is growing, and this year it offers a number of novelties. We had a chat with PIDA’s project manager Elin Li, who tells us about this year's brief, new contestants, and the newly established sustainability award.
Hi Elin, what does PIDA mean to you?
– PIDA – BillerudKorsnäs’ Packaging Impact Design Award – is about packaging design, creativity and innovation. Every year, we challenge students just so that they can challenge us back. PIDA is a hub for new ideas and inspiration, and professionals from the whole industry join our events to take part of this community. PIDA also contributes to the training of future professionals and then bringing these talents into light.
Tell us about this year’s brief!
– “We Challenge Conventional Packaging for a Sustainable Future” is BillerudKorsnäs’ vision. For this year’s PIDA assignment we invite the students to share this mind-set with us and challenge the packaging industry together. Rather than directing them to a specific segment or functionality, we want to hear from the students what they would like to change, and how, if they were given free reins.
“The students are often bold and creative – and look at problems with a different viewpoint where nothing is impossible – since they have not yet been shaped by commercial, technical or economical boundaries.”
What are your expectations? Hopes?
– I’m hoping to see some concepts that can challenge all the bad packages we see out there. Some packaging have survived only due to that there is an unwillingness to change somewhere in the supply chain. But consumers today expect more from packaging and are quick to change their behaviour if a better solution should turn up. I’m also hoping that this year’s PIDA will increase the awareness around over-packaging, unnecessary use of plastics, poor user-friendliness and poor product protection.
We want the student to consider the sustainability aspect, as it is a natural part of our business and a major driver behind change today.
This year, a new sustainability award is established. What more can you tell us about that?
– With the introduction of a new award category we want to emphasize that sustainability is no longer “nice to have”, but of major importance when it comes to packaging. In many consumer eyes, sustainability thinking is an expectation that can contribute to increased market share as well as reduced environmental impact. PIDA has always challenged students to take a holistic approach when developing their concepts. With the new sustainability award we want to emphasize the ideas that contribute to a “sustainable future”.
The University of Linköping is a newcomer at this year’s PIDA Sweden. Tell us more about this!
– We are growing our PIDA family with Linköping University and their Graphic Design and Communication program. This program focuses on communication as well as the technical craftsmanship behind graphic design. Here, like it already is on several of our other partner Universities, PIDA will be a natural part of their curriculum and integrated in their educational program.
Mittuniversitetet comes back after skipping one year. Any comments on that?
– We are very happy to welcome Mittuniversitetet back to PIDA Sweden. They have been part of PIDA for many years now so we really missed them last year. Each university has their uniqueness and speciality which contributes to lifting the whole level of the competition. At PIDA we want to show a great variety of packaging solutions. This is also what makes PIDA such a good platform for inspiration for our industry.