advanced package design

this semester i'm teaching the advanced package design class at parson's. i started with 13 students which have now dwindled to just 6, which is quite a loss for the students who dropped. the other way of looking at it is that the remaining students get more attention. today, i arranged a trip for them to material connexion, an incredible resource for all kinds of designers: architects, industrial, product and even graphic designers! michael lagreca [pictured with some of my students in this foto] was kind enough to make time and give them the overview. as parson's students, they have access to the database even from the school library. the designers at nooka at frequent visitors of the material connection library as well.

visit the material connexion website here.

nooka is available at fine stores and here. remember, you get a free copy of deastro's keepers with every online watch order on this link while supplies last!

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graduate show season

it is that time of year when the design schools all host the senior thesis shows of their respective departments. the first one i attended was for the IDC program of Parsons [where i taught one semester a few years back]. IDC= intergrated design curriculum and the students may attend classes from any of the disciplines Parsons offers – basically build-your-own-major. the group is small, but i was very impressed with the overall quality of both the work and execution.

highlights from the foto, right to left from the top:
henshin fashion project by masaaki sato. the male model in his look-book is wearing a nooka!
supra functional by caroline pham, impractical objects for a gluttonous society.
jeremy goodwin's furniture to create more social spaces,
polina ulendeeva's wonderful educational toy that teaches children about the major organs in the body [no web site yet]!
ariel mai newlands's immigration game for the NYC tenement museum. her site here.

check out the show while it's up at 66 fifth avenue in new york city!

package design

this semester i am teaching the senior package design for the first time at parsons [the new school]. i taught design process, web process and print process previously, so being asked to teach package design was not just a nice change, but perfect timing personally as i grapple with package design issues daily with nooka. i only have 5 students, which i thought would be a problem, but they're all good students [in previous classes of 15 students, i was lucky if i got 2 students who were mentally present and did the assignments as instructed].

i started with a philosophical approach and the story of pandora's box to get them thinking about how everything is packaged, including our bodies in our skin, the clothes [and cosmetics] we wear, the tubes and ways we buy these things. i want the students to think of the emotional aspect of packaging, especially how one felt as a kid opening a present, and to identify personal experiences of purchasing a product based on the packaging alone [a book cover IS a package which illustrates another class exercise: package AS product]. then i went onto exercises to identify the basic purposes of packaging and the many concerns facing a designer with each:
as protection for the product in transit [from factory, to store, to consumer, to use],
as branding,
as value-add [including 'package as product'].

We also discussed context as a main concern [prada doesn't need elaborate packaging because of the context of both the brand and the selling environment, a new product in a supermarket does], eco-concerns [the greenest package is no package, differences between recyclable and renewable resources etc.], as well as cost concerns and how they affect design [I was shocked that none of my students knew the relationship between oil prices and the cost of plastics!].

another mandatory task for this class is to keep a blog to share information with each other and to collect design reference. and i would like to share some of them here with you.

kevin, nia, elaine, joan.

above image is from a product i bought in japan [but have yet to use] because i liked the package called sylotee & bee polish. It's a tooth polishing system for stains regular brushing won't remove and consist of a silicone eraser and special polish. cute huh? my only criticism is: why isn't he/she smiling? more on the product in japanese here.