The World's Best Packaging: Dieline Awards 2020 Winners Revealed

LOS ANGELES, May 19, 2020 (Newswire.com) - ​​Today, Dieline announced its 2020 Dieline Awards winners, presenting trophies to 94 recipients across a wide range of categories.

Dieline Awards, now in its 10th year, is the world’s leading packaging design competition and recognizes the absolute best and brightest designers and agencies working within this field, raising awareness of the enormous value that goes into brand packaging design.

This year, Dieline Awards were presented by Adobe Dimension, an intuitive 3D scene design tool for prototyping, rendering photorealistic images, publishing interactive 3D content, and more. Aggregate 2D and 3D content to create brand visualizations, product mockups, virtual photographs, illustrations, and other creative work. The awards were also sponsored by Neenah Paper, Designalytics, and Arconvert.

The packaging design competition received over 1,400 entries, with recipients hailing from 21 countries. Overall, this year’s selection of winners shows a commitment to innovation, using plastic-free packaging materials and human-centric design, all a clear marker for what lies ahead when it comes to the future of branded packaging and a preview of the world to come.

The jury for the awards featured a who’s who from the world of design—luminaries like Debbie Millman of the Design Matters podcast, Design Army co-founder and CCO Pum Lefebure, Sean Adams of Art Center College of Design, RoAndCo Founder Roanne Adams, and Chobani CCO Leland Maschmeyer—all of whom combed through submissions while locked down under quarantine. Awards were judged across five categories—creativity, marketability, innovation, execution, and on-pack branding, going through two rounds of rigorous critique and appraisal.

This year’s overall Best in Show winner went to design and branding agency Superunion for Figlia, an Italian olive oil by Agricola Dargenio. The limited-edition olive oil was released to promote the first female CEO of the company, Emanuela Dargenio, and it comes in a handmade ceramic bottle with a wood top, a primal, back-to-basics design that gets at the core of what packaging is. The bottles are handmade, no two are alike, and the human-centric design found inspiration in the female figure, representing a future that is unmistakably female. Speaking of the design, Superunion claimed that it was a project “celebrating family, femininity, and the uniqueness of nature.”

The bottles can also get used long after they have fulfilled their original purpose as they were intentionally left unadorned, creating both a distinct work of art and a beautiful ceramic piece to display in the home.

“It is clear that our industry is moving away from plastic, year after year,” said Dieline founder Andrew Gibbs. “This year shows that in addition to moving away from plastic, our industry is moving toward human-centric design, design that respects humanity and the planet we all share.”

Studio of the Year and Editor’s Choice went to Superunion as well, as they won three awards in total. For Editor’s Choice, an award hand-picked by Dieline’s founder, impressed with another one of their sustainable projects, Notpla, a brand whose sole mission is to make plastic disappear. The edible, biodegradable material comes from seaweed and plants, and breaks down within 4-6 weeks, giving us a glimpse of a world free of packaging design. 

Rebrand of the Year went to UK agency Together Design for their work on Haws. The watering can packaging comes in the same shape as the tool itself, which features fine illustration work as well.

The Plastic Free Innovation of the Year, determined by advocacy group A Plastic Planet and Dieline, went to Swedish brand consultancy group Grow for Pearl, a fiber-based alternative to plastic sample packets prevalent throughout the beauty and skincare industry. The paper pods were developed along with BillerudKorsnäs and Syntegon and found inspiration in the natural shape of sea urchins.

"Not only does this innovation allow powders, gels, and liquids to get sold as single-dose without plastic, but the producer has elevated sustainability with a huge dose of beauty," said Sian Sutherland, co-founder of A Plastic Planet. "This is exactly how our future should look—aspirational, beautiful, and, best of all, using a sustainable material nature can easily handle."

The Arconvert Label Award went to No Man’s Space Eclipse Gin by Italian agency Spazio Di Paolo. Arconvert is a global leader in the production of self-adhesive materials for the labeling industry, and the minimalistic, sustainable label comes from 100% tree-free papers. The gin label features a lunar eclipse that takes form on the paper along with the interplay of light, creating an elegant reflection on freedom.

The Designalytics Effectiveness Award was created to help elevate the role of package design by spotlighting the immense financial impact that it can have on consumer brands. This year's award went to Beardwood&Co for their redesign of pet food brand Hill's Science Diet as Designalytics' evaluation revealed that pet owners are twice as likely to prefer purchasing Hill's new packaging to the old—a finding confirmed by retail sales data. During the six months following the redesign, the brand grew 17.3% compared to the six months prior, representing an annualized increase of approximately $100 million.

The Neenah Paper award went to Meng Zhang for Covet Chocolate, a Dubai-based chocolatier. The wrapper featured mysterious illustrations alluding to the creation of the chocolate, and it can also get repurposed later into a bookmark or coaster, another example of packaging having a use beyond its original intention.

“We are proud to be presented by Adobe Dimension, an essential tool that can help packaging designers create 3D renders,” said Andrew Gibbs. “ Not only did we use it to create marketing materials for the Dieline Awards 2020, but some of our winners used it to create renders for the competition.” 

While the awards are typically held at Dieline Conference at HOW Design Live, Dieline pivoted and announced all of the winners on their Instagram as well as their site. Highlighting how packaging design plays an integral role in our daily lives and shapes our world with groundbreaking solutions.

About Dieline

Established in 2007 by Andrew Gibbs, Dieline has become the leading media brand for consumer packaging and consumer brands. Dieline is committed to supporting the advancement of the package design industry in all its forms.

About Adobe Dimension

Adobe Dimension is an intuitive 3D design and layout tool for prototyping, rendering photorealistic images, publishing 3D content, and more. Aggregate 2D and 3D content to create brand visualizations, product mockups, packaging designs, spatial designs, and other creative work.

Source: Dieline