Spectra Packaging recently offered local students the opportunity to design a bottle that will then be produced and sold in shops.
Working alongside Lowestoft College and a trusted well-known brand partner, Spectra organised a competition for students to come up with a bottle design for a hair care product that will then go into production to be sold through a leading high street store.
Spectra’s Sales Director, Jonathan Powell enthused, “This is an amazing opportunity for students to gain real life commercial experience working within the packaging industry. It will give them an invaluable insight into all the processes involved. What’s more, to be able to boast that their design will be seen on a shelf in a high street store has undeniable kudos when pursuing a future career in the industry”.
Over the years Spectra has developed strong ties with Lowestoft College where many of their apprentice staff have attended a wide range of courses.
This latest venture gives degree level graphic design students the chance to experience a real life project – from briefing and conceptual work through to branding and eventual production. It’s an incredible opportunity that Jonathan says shouldn’t be underestimated.
“These hopeful future pack designers have been thrown straight in the deep end which can only stand them in good stead for the future. They’ve been given a genuine project brief with all the inevitable limitations and considerations to deal with. This isn’t simply a case of coming up with something fantastical and unachievable, it’s got to be commercially viable with functionality and feasibility given primary consideration. It’s a challenge our design team have to overcome on a daily basis and it’s an extremely exciting opportunity for the students”.
The degree students have been given an exact design brief and are now in the process of coming up with their initial proposals. The concepts will then be judged by Spectra along with their brand partner before a short list of designs make it to the next stage. The winning design will be custom tooled by Spectra’s in-house tooling department before going into production at their busy Suffolk based plant.
Students have also been tasked with designing the branding for the hair care product to appear on the finished pack.
Jonathan concluded, “We’re really looking forward to seeing what the students come up with. We’re a company keen on developing young new talent and who knows, we may unearth a real talent that we’d love to have working within our organisation”.
The final results and outcome of the competition will be unveiled in a future news report.
