A Clean Sweep
Students from Dunwoody College of Technology earn multiple victories at AICC Annual Student Packaging Design Competition.
To win multiple first place awards at the Association of Independent Corrugated Converters Student Packaging Design Competition, the team from Dunwoody College of Technology had to think beyond designing and printing.
While the competition judged final printed products, Peter Rivard, Dunwoody’s principal instructor of design and graphics technology and the team’s faculty advisor, says market and product research, combined with facing intense deadline pressure is what put the Dunwoody squad in first place contention.
The competition had each team construct three separate marketing materials for their respective schools. These consisted of a standee to display at college fairs or on campus, a mailer to send to prospective students, and a corrugated welcome kit to distribute to new students.
“The competition seems to be designed to put real deadline pressures on students and ask them to do other things other than just fire up their computer and do some design,” Rivard explains. “These competitions are making these students look at these things that we typically wouldn’t talk about in class.”
Rivard says the students found out about this year’s project in April. The team of six then had approximately nine weeks to complete the task and submit it. Judging consisted of two elements, visual and structural, and Dunwoody took first place in both.
The team’s final submission was designed to be interactive and consistent with the college’s newly revamped marketing requirements. The standee consists of a base topped with three separate, removable elements. Each piece rotates around a central axis. The mailer is designed to fold out in four directions, with different artwork on each panel. The welcome kit contains a pull out drawer and a flip top with a tray, creating a tool to carry all of the handouts and supplies students receive on their first day.
Rivard says that he and his students typically take pride in printing all of their competitions in house on their own equipment, and the initial plan for this one was to have the students use an inkjet printer on adhesive vinyl and stretch that over the corrugated material. But, midway through the process, their CAD table malfunctioned, sending the group scrambling to find an outside printer that could produce the project.
Ambassador Press and The Bureau, both located nearby in Minneapolis, provided services for the team and instead of printing on vinyl, the project was printed directly to the substrate.
The team used Ambassador’s HP Scitex flat bed 7500 and cut the projects on a Kongsberg table.
Team member Noah Rabinowitz says despite this major change in plans, the finished products came out better than expected. He says the artwork was printed nearly flawlessly and there was even a pleasant surprise in utilizing the large format inkjet printer.
“I’d say the only big difference was with the large format inkjet, the spray down on it is much heavier, so there’s a texture behind it and if you’re close to it you can see it,” he explains.
By winning the competition, the team was invited to attend Corrugated Week, hosted by AICC and TAPPI in September in Long Beach, California. Rivard says it was an excellent opportunity for the students to meet and network with respected industry representatives.
“To have people coming up and shaking their hands saying how much they admired their work, it’s a big deal for an emerging professional to be recognized,” he says.
The team will compete next in the International Corrugated Packaging Foundation’s “Best of the Best” Student Design Presentation Competition, held via teleconference on Thursday, Feb. 19, 2015. pP
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Cory Francer is an Analyst with NAPCO Research, where he leads the team’s coverage of the dynamic and growing packaging market. Cory also is the former editor-in-chief of Packaging Impressions and is still an active contributor to its print magazines, blogs, and events. With a decade of experience as a professional journalist and editor, Cory brings an eye for storytelling to his packaging research, providing compelling insight into the industry's most pressing business issues. He is an active participant in many of the industry's associations and has played an essential role in the development of the annual Digital Packaging Summit. Cory can be reached at cfrancer@napco.com
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