It’s about holding and protecting a product, enhancing and explaining the brand and, last but not least, communicating with the public letting it become a consumer: packaging is a complex and fascinating world, where creativity is less and less subordinated to functionality.
We can also say that the creative aspect of packaging in recent years is becoming very important to renew the messages of a brand, change its style and visually inspire the public in new and surprising ways.
These are the rules of the "limited editions", limited editions of products in which the packaging is transformed into a small masterpiece thanks to the collaboration with famous artists and talented illustrators.
Here are some examples of artist packaging - from rigid packaging to cans to flexible packaging - which can be considered small collector's items.
Lancôme - Yayoi Kusama
In 2010, the French maison Lancôme asked Yayoi Kusama - one of the leading Japanese visual artists, known as the "queen of polka dots" - to design a collection to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the famous Juicy Tubes lip glosses. The result was a very colorful limited edition of 6 glosses, decorated with stylized motifs with small jellyfish, butterflies and tulips in manga style on strictly polka dot backgrounds, a distinctive and recurring stylistic feature in Kusama's aesthetics.
Oreo - Jeremyville e Timothy Goodman
In 2015, the American brand of the over a hundred years famous biscuits, collaborated with the two New York artists and writers Jeremyville and Timothy Goodman to create a Christmas edition of the flexible packaging of Oreo, aiming at personalization and maximum involvement of the public: only during the Christmas period, accessing the brand's website, the consumer could choose from several exclusive illustrations by the two artists, customize the lettering, colors and sizes of the pattern and thus order their own cookie package.
An original idea for a Christmas gift in the name of design, as well as sweetness.
Sephora - Malika Favre
Another close and prolific encounter between the world of beauty and art can be found in the collaboration between the Parisian multinational Sephora and Malika Favre: French artist and graphic designer based in London, Malika is famous all over the world for the minimal style, optical and pop illustrations for the covers of magazines such as Vogue and The New York Times. For Sephora, Malika has created the design of several limited editions, for example the packaging of the 2015 and 2016 Christmas gift boxes or Mother's Day boxes, reinterpreting the black and white striped pattern specific of the brand with brio and elegance, adding bright and contrasting shades.
Pepsi Co - Nicola Formichetti
Artistic director for Diesel and Lady Gaga's fashion stylist, the Italian-Japanese Nicola Formichetti is also known as the brand ambassador of the soft drink giant, PepsiCo.
During Milan Design Week 2015, the American brand and the designer launched the “Live For Now” challenge, asking fans from all over the world to reinvent the design of the classic Pepsi can. To open the competition, the first limited edition creation was exactly the one of Formichetti, aka "Nicopanda": the designer proposed his personal reinterpretation of aluminum packaging, inspired by the boundless world of graphics, with pop and playful patterns that refer to the universe of graffiti, as well as to the flat aesthetics of Japanese cartoons.
Tempo - Olimpia Zagnoli
Of daily use, useful to everyone and handy to keep in your pocket: the classic pack of tissues is such a widespread object that we almost do not notice having one always with us, at home, in the car, in the office.
To make it unique and unforgettable, Tempo, the historic German company producing paper tissues, asked in 2019 the talented Italian illustrator Olimpia Zagnoli to design 8 different versions of packaging for the "Limited Edition #Moodoftheday". Eight different moods told through the dreamlike and ironic, minimalist and colorful style of the internationally known illustrator, aka "OZ".
Small giants - Fernando Molina
Not only limited edition and historical brands: the use of the talent and inventiveness of illustrators is an increasingly popular choice even by the nascent brands to capture the attention of the consumer and convey brand messages with originality and consistency. This is the case of Small Giants, a London-based startup founded by some young Italians in 2020: the idea of the founders is to bring the public closer to alternative and healthy sources of sustainable proteins, launching on the market cricket flour-based protein crackers, at the flavor of turmeric or paprika, thyme, rosemary, tomato and oregano.
The flexible packaging used to pack the snacks is made up of small bags, decorated by the Brazilian graphic and illustrator Fernando Molina with a playful and psychedelic style and bright and captivating colors: the perfect aesthetic synthesis of the brand's claim, “We make the Weird Wonderful! ".
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