2018 Art of Packaging Award Gala honors Groupe Pochet and student designers

The Pratt Art of Packaging Award Gala is an esteemed fund raising event that benefits the Marc Rosen Scholarship Fund for Packaging by Design at Pratt Institute.

This year for the first time in the event’s history the Art of Packaging Award went to a fragrance and beauty packaging supplier rather than a fragrance brand or such a brand’s parent company. While this was a bit of shift, the premise of the award is unchanged. “The Art of Packaging Award is presented annually to a beauty industry company or individual that has excelled in the art form of package design,”​ as a media release about the event explains.

Designers of the future ​

Frances Bronet, president of the Pratt Institute spoke about the four students honored for their fragrance packaging (and brand) design work at the event. She commended Pandara Chanyatanavut, Huei Tai Chen, Hyewon Im, and Hyeryun Nam for “the work [they’ve] done and for the work [they’re] going to do.” ​And encouraged everyone at the event to take a look at the “small piece of glass architecture” ­​–the fragrance bottles, packaging, display, and retail assets that these Pratt Institute students each developed.

Chanyatanavut’s celebrated design is for a hypothetical fragrance called ‘desire’ with a round bottle and packaging that hints at the elegance of a sophisticated rose gold gown.

Im created a design for ‘daydream’ in dusty blue and white that evokes a young, clean lifestyle, embellished with a gesture of breezy calligraphy.

Nam’s design for ‘aethete’ comprises strong, angular gold lines on a crisp white geometric bottle. And, Chen created a bottle of stacked smooth shapes and saturated colors for ‘hypothese’.

Bronet also introduced Groupe Pochet’s executive board president Irene Gosset and the company’s managing director Tristan Farabet to accept their award.

This year’s honoree ​

Groupe Pochet is a global packaging manufacturing group with facilities in some 16 locations across both North and South America, Europe, and Asia. The Pochet and Qualipac companies are especially well known and  “enable designers to create beautiful and innovative packaging for fragrance, make-up and skin care by developing new techniques and manufacturing methods that gives them the tools for creation,” ​as Marc Rosen explained in event preview materials.

Accepting the award, Gosset explained that the team at Groupe Pochet might best be understood as “industrial artists” ​who are compelled to “push [design] further than what is technically possible.”​

“We view our mission,” ​she says, “as making our customers emotions a reality with our unique creations.”​

Over the years, the Art of Packaging Award Gala has—through events like the one honoring Group Pochet—brought in $3.5m for Pratt scholarship students.

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Deanna Utroske, CosmeticsDesign.com Editor, covers beauty business news in the Americas region and publishes the weekly Indie Beauty Profile column, showcasing the inspiring work of entrepreneurs and innovative brands.