Stora Enso has been awarded with the Red Dot Design Award for the scalable and recyclable gift packaging portfolio for a range of Marimekko’s products. The first boxes were launched in May 2024.
The Red Dot Award was granted for outstanding design and creative performance in the category of Product Design 2025. The products selected by the Red Dot Jury are aesthetically appealing, functional, sustainable or innovative, but what they all have in common is their outstanding design. Red Dot Award is one of the biggest design competitions in the world. Since 1955, it has recognized products that stand out for their exceptionally high design quality.
The award-winning packaging portfolio is scalable and recyclable, made of renewable certified materials, featuring Marimekko artwork such as Unikko, Marimekko’s most iconic print, as well as logo patterns.
“The Marimekko gift packaging portfolio reduces resource consumption with its flexible packaging system while simultaneously creating an appropriate brand ambassador for its colorful range. The boxes, made of sustainable corrugated cardboard, can be folded in a variety of ways for the safe packaging of a wide range of products without the need for adhesive tape or padding materials. Some packaging products feature handles and can therefore be used in place of shopping bags. Locally sourced materials strengthen the packaging’s sustainability credentials. The Marimekko gift portfolio demonstrates to what extent smart packaging design can be made sustainable,” stated the Red Dot jury for the motivation for the award.
Anna Kjellberg, design director, Packaging Solutions Division at Stora Enso, said the were extremely pleased to receive this recognition from Red Dot. “The key to our development was creating premium protection with enhanced functionality and beauty. Our design team aimed to present a gift packaging portfolio with a clear purpose while expressing Marimekko’s strong brand identity. We believe this was one of the reasons for this fantastic acknowledgment. We are proud of our collaboration with Marimekko and delighted to see the gift packaging being used worldwide.”
“We are thrilled that the gift packaging portfolio created in collaboration with Stora Enso has been honored with the Red Dot Design Award 2025. From the start, our aim was to design packaging that is not only scalable and highly functional but also visually joyful, believing that it can find a second life and purpose after the gifts are unwrapped. Our in-house visual team played a key role in ensuring that the packages are a seamless extension of our brand’s visuality, whether they are embellished with our season’s prints or logo pattern,” says Eija Salmela, who led Marimekko’s team in the collaboration.
The Red Dot Design Award is one of the biggest design competitions in the world. In three disciplines, participants submit products, communication projects and brands as well as prototypes and concepts. The distinction ‘Red Dot’ is an internationally recognized seal of outstanding design quality. The award winners are presented in Red Dot’s yearbooks and museums as well as on the Red Dot website.
