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Oldfields Orchard Cider
Product Manager Alison Chadwick talks
to Graphic Design students about their final eco packaging solutions. |
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| A prototype sustainable pack concept from design student Matt Richards. |
(A project that I helped develop, supervise and teach to Green Design students. A facsimile of a University of Worcester News Release, pictures by myself).
Graphic Design students from the University of Worcester have been working on a ‘live’ eco packaging project for Worcestershire cider brand, Oldfields Orchard and its parent company, Hobsons Brewery.
The project was set to the students after Hobsons Brewery heard about some of the other eco packaging projects design students had worked on for other regional companies such as Weston’s Organic Cider, The Wye Valley Brewery and Lea & Perrins’ Worcestershire Sauce (Heinz UK).
The students were tasked by Hobsons Brewery’s Cider Product Manager, Alison Chadwick, with developing new packaging concepts to safely display and transport 6 bottles of the company’s beers or Oldfields Orchard ciders. Crucially students were to look at achieving this while lessening materials and ink uses as well as using just locking folds and no glues. Each pack also had to have a creative re-use too once it had safely delivered the products to the purchaser. This meant that the pack in some cases had a clear second use, or maybe it easily separated into constituent parts for recycling or in some cases the pack was made from seeded cardboard which the purchaser could put in a flower or vegetable bed to grow herbs from that could be used in a linked recipe scheme.
Alison Chadwick attended the students’ final submissions of work and had chance to look around and talk to individuals about their ideas and said:
“I gave the students the same brief I would give to a professional designer and was extremely impressed how well they incorporated our brand guidelines into their work. The final packages were very well made giving me, their client, a firm feel for how the packages would perform in the ‘real world’. It was also great to hear the students’ ideas of how social media could be used, just some of many things we plan to incorporate in future packaging, hopefully with more input from some of these very talented people.”
Senior lecturer in design Andy Stevenson has developed teaching in this area at the University in recent years and also helped evolve this brief. He adds: “Some of the student concepts for this brief are really impressive, I’m genuinely taken aback with the range of treatments they’ve incorporated. Many of the ideas have been developed on the back of their research and linked lecture visits to partners such as the Centre for Alternate Technology in Wales – Europe’s largest Eco Centre. Alison from Hobsons has been really great with the students too and has kindly given up a lot of her time to feed back on their ideas ongoing and their final concepts. The students have clearly thrived on a brief that’s both has a real client and that also has a set of genuine sustainable design challenges from the client.”
Third year Graphic Design student Luma de Oliveira worked on the project and adds "This project was inspiring in many ways; not only we worked in close contact with a real client on a live brief, but also we were able to learn more about sustainability, a subject that doesn’t get taught very often on Graphic Design courses. This project was a huge wake up call to environmental issues and how designers have the opportunity to make a difference by designing products that not only can be recycled but also re-used."
Hobsons and the team who make Oldfields Orchard Cider are now reviewing the student submissions and ideas and hope to arrive at a set of the five ‘most successful’ ideas. They also hope that they can incorporate some of these successful ideas into their future packaging concepts - which could form an amazing opportunity for the students involved to mention in future interview scenarios with potential employers.
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