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Student Spotlight: Tengu Instant Noodles

Designed by Rory Phillips, a student at Portland State University:

"The goal of this project was to create a brand and design it's identity and various deliverables to support the brand.

Instant noodles are super yummy, but they are also unhealthy because they are made with processed ingredients and fried. The idea was to market a brand of noodles that was made from organic whole grain and baked not fried, with high quality delicious gourmet flavors. Tengu is a type of mischievous Japanese demon, in this case a fox. The fox in Japaneses mythology is the guardian spirit of Daikoku the god of the harvest and kitchen. Fox shrines are found all over japan and people leave treats for the fox spirits for good fortune. After a lot of research Tengu became the name and symbol for the brand. The food of Chef Chen Kenichi was the inspiration for the different flavors of the noodles.

In order to differentiate the healthy delicious Tengu noodles from the processed junk noodles, the packaging is of a longer rectangular shape instead of the usual square. This was meant to evoke the idea of fine gourmet pastas.  The packaging was designed to be made from unbleached recycled materials to remind the consumer of the unprocessed nature of the product and to avoid the bright and cheap mass produced look of the junk brands. The message is this is a premium handcrafted item. The 'obi' or sash around the packaging designates the flavor this allows the company to easily add new seasonal flavors without changing and printing entirely new packages. The inside of the 'obi' has more information on the brand message; Tengu makes traditional Healthy, Delicious and Sustainable noodles everyone can enjoy."

Several more images after the jump. Be sure the check out the barcode he came up with, clever!

Student Spotlight: Angela Wang

Angela Wang is a Graphic Design Major student currently studying in Art Center College of Design:

Kids Chocolate Structure: “With its unique form, each package is able to hold two kinds of flavors of chocolate.”

D3 Eaqthquake Kit: "The kit is aim to help individual be self-sustainable for minimum of three days after major disaster struck.The exterior panels have steps of CPR instructions in text and illustrations. Individual panel can also be used as emergency splint. The kit is color-coded and grouped into 4 cases: First-aid, Food+Water, Shelter+Light, and Toiletry. Each case can be remove and re-attach from the belt of panels. The belt of panels can be opened up and use as vertical hanger to store these cases in case emergency shelters have minimal storage space. "

Question Taste!

New work from Lauren Golembiewski, a recent graduate of Penn State's graphic design program:

"Question Taste! is my design for a line of hot sauces inspired by Dada art. It asks consumers to question conventional taste, and spice up their food. Each sauce is given a nonsensical name, Twing, Raskley, Zoost & Zingy to carry the Dada theme. The concept is that people must make food their own, and not to be satified with taste the way that it is. Though, beware because the sauces come in four levels of intensities, yet give no indication of which sauces is hottest or mildest. The sauces come in an explosive little carrier so that the flavor adventure can all be stored together."

Student Spotlight: Stephanie Hiser

Stephanie Hiser is a recent graduate of FIT's Packaging Design program. Take a look at some of the projects she designed while at FIT below:

Couvet 1797 is a top shelf absinthe cocktail. Glass in hand and ready to drink, this pre-mixed cocktail offers modernity and history in each pour.

Digirent is an up and coming shipping based Apple rentals company.  In keeping with the simple and refined design of Apple, Digirent is understated and pure, communicating to the mac-using professional.

Spry Saucers is an ultimate frisbee equipment company using a light, spirited, youthful design targeting the ultimate frisbee guru.  Thiis will surely stand apart from it's competition on shelf.
Pantone Top Coat is a "what if" project.  What is pantone branched out into the world of beauty and fashion? Inspiration was drawn from a Pantone swatch book to illustrate color that can be achieved on various shades of hair.

Student Spotlight: GrowYourOwn

 

Adam Paterson and Santi Tonsukha from the Royal College of Art Industrial Design Engineering created “GrowYourOwn” packaging for fruit and vegetable seeds for novice gardeners:

"Using user centric research and the natural properties of 100% recyclable corrugated cardboard, they created new packaging that was simple, clear, sustainable and approachable. The project won ‘In-Book’ award for the D&AD Student Awards 2009. A single piece of 100% recycled corrugated cardboard is the package.

Research showed that users didn’t use all the seeds in a pack at once. The new packaging is easily re-sealable. Insights also suggested that an allotment grower generally doesn’t want to grow/eat a large number of crops of the same variety. The new packaging can hold a variety of seeds, separately, in one pack, utilizing the corrugated structure of the cardboard as natural dividers.

With previous seed packaging, distributing the seeds evenly from the pack was very hard. By using the corrugated structure the seeds are held in thin rows, which are the perfect ‘v’ shape to allow them to be
very easily and controllably shaken out.

It can be tedious and boring laying out rows of seeds whilst trying to maintain equal spacing. The new measuring tape style, which the DIY savvy customer can easily relate, makes it much quicker and easier.
The tape, with its embedded seeds, has 10 cm markers on it, making it easy to simply pull out the desired length, tear it off and lay it in the ground.

The packaging for bulbs is reminiscent of brown paper sacks, creating a mental link with what the consumer is used to seeing/buying the fully-grown vegetable in.

The natural matte colour and aesthetic of the cardboard creates visual differentiation from the other packages that present too much information and can be overwhelming and intimidating as a result."

Student Spotlight: Meg Eaton

 

Two beautiful concepts designed by Meg Eaton, a recent graduate of the Communications Design program at Syracuse University:

"Chumbi is the solution to bland and boring flavors of ice cream like vanilla or butter pecan. Chumbi offers a variety of unique flavor combinations for adventurous eaters like garlic mojito, tomato parmigiano or black cherry zucchini. The quirky design is reflective of the balancing act of unusual flavors and the colorful elephant acts kind of like a bizarre mascot. 

Mambajamba is a new kind of animal cracker that pairs two fun flavors together. Cinnamon & Honey, Caramel & Vanilla or Original & Pink frosted are a few of the varieties. The cookies are packaged in two separate compartments that flip backwards to reveal a pop-up animal. The packaging also aims to educate kids about different species of animals. The different eyes on the front of each box as well as the fun facts on left side of the box act as hints to indicate which animal will pop-up on the inside!"

Apis Honey

 

Designed by Gina Demm, a student at the Art Institute of Minnesota. She was awarded AIGA's 2009 scholarship to her for best portfolio:

"Three different honey products were packaged using a honeycomb pattern for the boxes and a brand name that reveals a clue about the product's origins. Out of 20,000 known species of bees, honey bees represent a small fraction, but only members of the genus Apis are true honey bees."

Tison Incense

 

When you can visually explain a product's purpose without words, you've got a solid concept for packaging. The burned-looking edges of Tison incense packaging clearly explain the product's function - to burn as incense. I discovered this concept for Tison incense from the portfolio of Quebec student, Louis Beaudoin. He is a recent graduate of UQAM (Université du Québec à Montréal). Incidentally, the students at UQAM are putting out some pretty solid work in packaging. Sylvain Allard, who is professor of graphic design at UQAM, runs a great blog that often features his own student's work in packaging. Worth a look: packaging | UQAM