Giving Packaging a New Life AND How It’s Made: Packaging





The two sets of videos that were watched, presented the importance of packaging design and its environmental perspective. With estimation that 73-85 % of purchase decisions are made based on the products packaging[1], it could be said that as an industrial designer I have to try to be a social designer. That is, try and keep my designs both socially favourable yet also commercially attractive. From what I have observed about the videos, a product can be environmentally friendlier through the use of recycled materials yet attractive of the market shelves with the attractive use of labeling and smart packaging.
Ever since the start of my interest in the world of design, I have always been familiar with the concept of recycling (especially relevant to packaging) but I did not think that recycling has been this effective and that it is as developed as was shown in the videos. As an example I did not think that plastic water bottles could be recycled and reused as simply as shown in the videos. Before watching the videos I did not think that recycling would be as popular and sought after as shown.
Something that interested me while watching “Giving Packaging a New Life” was the fact that simple methods, such as the use of magnetic strips and the force of wind, are used to perform the recycling process which is I thought of as being very complex before watching the videos. Also, as explained by the first set of videos, the majority of the recycling process is about the sorting of the materials. Therefore, as an industrial designer, this makes me think about designing products with minimum variety of different materials used to encourage quick recycling and also reduce the costs of it. The use of simple yet efficient methods such as the use of different colours has become an encouraging factor for people, which again brings me to the thought of using simple yet smart tricks that make use of the products for the customer easier, to enhance my designs in the future.
The videos have enhanced the way I previously looked at recycling, and have highlighted the effective use of the recycled materials in the production of the product and their packaging, as well as briefing the several types of recycling process.





[1] http://www.thedieline.com/blog/2010/8/3/social-packaging-design-building-strong-shelf-impact-and-bet.html
Viewed 10/03/13. 

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