With the announcement of this year’s winners, we decided to bring the Pentawards a bit closer to our readers. Speaking to us some time ago, JeanJacques Evrard, one of the organizers of the awards, had said: “Asia is showing more creativity and especially its ability to magnify its own cultures. Unfortunately, India is still lagging behind with low participation and no winners. Perhaps the Indian packaging designers are shy and do not show their creations to the rest of the world.
“If this is the case, it is a mistake because the international jury of the Pentawards does not judge the creations by the country of origin, but solely on the quality of the creations compared to creations from the same market. No less than 55 different categories allow any type of packaging to compete and be judged against similar creations. This means that a bottle of wine is not evaluated next to a beer, washing powder next to gardening materials, or even a bottle of perfume next to make-up.… We hope to see Indian designers and creations in the next competition….”
So, if Indians cannot be brought to the Pentawards, let’s bring the Pentawards to the Indians—more specifically, to the Packaging Design Innovation and Technology Conference (PDIT) this December. Gérard Caron, head of the Pentawards jury, will share some of the ideas and creative flavor of this competition to PDIT to be held on 16 and 17 December 2016 at the Bombay Exhibition Centre alongside the PackTech International Exhibition. The PDIT Conference will have, besides design innovation or perhaps because of it, a strong component discussing food wastage and sustainability in packaging supported by FAO and Interpack research. Dutch designer Rob Vermeulen of Vermeulen Coppen Design will address the Save Food issues in packaging design. An advisor to organizations and non-profit organizations in Europe and around the world, Vermeulen was a main speaker at the Save Food Congress held alongside Interpack in Dusseldorf.
Our own contingent of packaging designers and developers led by Deepak Manchanda of Autumn Design will be joined by leading packaging designers from India’s burgeoning packaging design community. Prabodh Halde of Marico will speak about food safety and compliances, while Sukhdev Singh Saini will speak about innovations in new materials. We have commitments from innovators such as Bill Perell who will speak about “Customer-driven sustainable packaging solutions.” In the sustainability and zero landfill discussion, Sunita Narain or perhaps Swati Singh Sambyal of the Centre for Science and Environment will actively participate
