Ravensbourne Product Design students shine in awards competitions

Three of our BA (Hons) Product Design students won awards at the PIDA UK competition. PIDA is a global contest that holds competitions in France, Belgium, Sweden, Germany, Austria, China, the UK, and the US. It was established in 2005 to celebrate young talent give them an opportunity to get to know the carton board material.

Our student Josh Curtis is the winner of the UK competition, taking home the PIDA Gold Award. As a result, he will be jetting off to Monaco for the Grand Finale, where an all-European winner will be selected among the respective PIDA Gold Award winners.

The Grand Finale will be held at the Luxe Pack Monaco event, the premier trade show for creative packaging.

He created ‘Ritini’ a natural chewing gum from Chios in Greece. The jury described his product as ‘the complete package’, praising its sustainability, branding, and unique, teardrop-shaped carton board packaging.

Aqib Mirza was the winner for having the ‘highest level of user-friendliness’. He created ‘Dried Delights’, a range of dried fruits including dates, figs, and apricots.

The judges praised its ‘well-branded and clever’ structural design, which enables easy sharing with friends and family. Lifting off the lid reveals an attractive flower-shaped design that opens up to provide access to the dried fruit inside.

Kris Owen won the award for having the ‘highest level of sustainability’ with his entry, Canción Coffee, according to judges. His coffee branding is all about songbird preservation. These birds depend on shade-grown coffee plantations, habitats that sun-grown coffee is putting at risk.

The product is packaged in a recyclable paper bag with a promotional board base – complete with songbird-shaped cappuccino stencil.

Three of our second-year students also won silver awards in the Starpack Students competition. This is an opportunity for students to showcase their great ideas and solutions directly to industry.

Established in 1964, the competition challenges students to submit solutions to problems set by brand-leading companies, design agencies, and manufacturers.

The students attended an awards ceremony on Thursday 23 June, which was held aboard The Elizabethan, a paddle steamer on the Thames.

(Left to right: Prabhnoor Singh, course leader Nadine Bennet, Ella Sutherland, and Em Lemaître-Downton)

Prabhnoor Singh won silver in a brief which asked for a ’metal pack for a mobile phone and accessories’. His work, ‘APRATIM’, was praised for its ‘excellent sleek and polished presentation’ and overall ‘luxury look’.

Ella Sutherland also took home silver for the ‘packaging to help reduce consumer food waste’ brief. She created ‘Halv’, which aims to combat food waste. It is bread packaging that splits in two, encouraging consumers to wrap up and preserve one half of the loaf, for example by putting it in the freezer. Judges praised it for its ‘clever concept’ and ‘excellent understanding of materials’.

Em Lemaître-Downton also took home a silver award in the ‘going back greener’ brief. Her entry was ‘Smirnoff REVIVE’, which offered a greener way to share the famed vodka brand. The judges praised the packaging and praised the minimalistic use of board. which ‘still delivers a great pack enhancement’.

In addition, students Muhsin Uddin and Jakob Timerdahl have been nominated for the Helen Hamlyn Fixperts Awards, an international competition that champions human-centred design.

They worked alongside Rasheed, a student with dwarfism and a condition called polydactyly, which means he has extra fingers on each hand. They created a personalised pen grip to help him hold a pen and make writing easier.

Learn more about the course and find other success stories at BA (Hons) Product Design.