Designing Sustainable Packaging - Eco-Friendly Arts and Crafts

Fantastic information about creating sustainable packaging including instructions on making boxes and containers. Wondering what the big deal is about learning how to quickly and efficiently fold a box? Consider this from two different approaches for your arts or crafts business. The first, of course, is to give your customer more perceived value for their purchase by including a nice box made from recycled material that can be further recycled by the customer - they use the box for another purpose. Secondly, with the right type of marketing, handcrafting eco-friendly packaging can be an art or craft all by itself!

While making arts and crafts from recycled products has been a continuing trend (and poised to continue into the near future) reusing and repurposing raw materials doesn't do a heck of a lot of good unless our arts and crafts products are provided to our customers in sustainable packaging as well.

Written for graphic artists, Designing Sustainable Packaging gives useful information about reusing and resourcing materials for product packaging. You may think the applications would only be suitable for mass container design, however much of the book contains very interesting applications that can be used by any arts or crafts business owner.

Set up in two sections, the first section of the book is about refocusing and the second addresses restructuring. The refocusing section delves into the background of the packaging industry. It emphasizes the need to look past the immediate use of product packaging to the consumer's possible post-purchase use. For example, designing a container holding the materials for a kit so it has a second life as another useable product. Part of this process is first envisioning how your customer can re-use the container and then using a design and materials suitable for the second life as well as the first.

Included in this section of the book are case studies which discuss an attempt in the 1960s to design Heineken beer bottles that could be recycled (when empty!) as housing for developing nations, the irritating nature of the Norad-like plastic security encasing music and movie cds and DVDs (AKA jewel cases) and several case studies of major well-know companies such as Starbucks and Hewlett Packard who are moving to sustainable packaging. One very interesting section is about Twist sponge packaging that includes instructions on how to convert the product packaging into a bird feeder.

As fascinating as this part of the book is, arts and crafts business owners will most likely find the second part, which contains nifty prototypes and information about materials and construction of the most interest. The section begins with origami instructions to master the art of folding a piece of paper into a crane followed by instructions to make glue-less boxes and containers in numerous sizes and shapes.

The last section of the book show different projects using sustainable packaging such as a candleholder set, or marketing a tea infuser in wind chime packaging. Both create a value added aspect giving your customer not just the product but suggesting a lifestyle to them. For example, drinking the tea while nestled in a comfortable chair on a secluded patio listening to the melodious sound of the wind chime.

Okay - maybe that patio get-a-way overlooks a neighbor's trashcans but for a moment in the store while making the purchase, the customer can envision the ideal. And isn't that what handcrafting arts and crafts is all about? Giving our customers a little slice of luxury in the form of a product that isn't mass-produced.