Editor’s note: This post was written by Jonny Rowntree, a freelance writer working with digital printing company Elanders UK. Jonny has a background working in technological media, writing articles for The Next Web, Creative Bloq and Buffer. You can find him on Twitter: @shoutjonny and Google+ Jonny Rowntree.

In order to entice customers during busy shopping periods, for instance Thanksgiving and Christmas, businesses and retailers alike need to brainstorm and create innovate ideas and marketing campaigns that help promote their range of items in all of their glory to potential customers.

Digital printing partner, Elanders UK Printing, have put together this array of packaging designs for your viewing pleasure and critique – let us know what you think in the comments!

Paper Doll Party

UK supermarket giant, Tesco, wanted to create a campaign that would target British bloggers who are interested in fashion and beauty. As these bloggers have thousands of readers not only in the UK but also around the world of whom they share their specialist advice on how to put the perfect outfit together.

The Paper Doll Party campaign consisted of different packages customised for bloggers in the industry and contained a selection of handcrafted cookies bearing the Florence and Fred (Tesco’s own clothing brand) logo, a number of miniature paper doll outfits and a paper doll designed to look like the blogger themselves. The paper dolls and outfits were all designed in house by Tesco.

Sarah, founder of the Temporary Secretary blog, received one of the packages said, “F&F has been one of her favourite brands to work with in 2013, as they really understood the principles of social media and the impact of collaborating with bloggers and YouTubers.”

Water in a Box

Following the recent environmental concerns, the packaging industry is moving away from plastic solutions like Tetra Pak – which constructs the packaging for Vivid Water’s Water in a Box range.

The packaging design team opted for a simple and clean design, using a white and blue colour scheme to symbolise water along with a water drop icon in order to make the product instantly associated as a water product.

Meat Gift Wrap

Believe it or not but this meat gift-wrap was inspired by an earlier design consisting of burgers by Gift Couture. This time around, they have gone a little more upmarket and produced some supreme steak gift-wrap.

Co-founders, Justin Colt and Sarah Fay started their wrapping business in their New York apartment. Their initial cheeseburger design was incredibly popular and sold out, which made the gift-wrapping duo to decide to further their foodie passion. Perhaps keep this one from your vegan friends!

BANDiful

Bandages usually find their way into your shopping basket whilst at the local pharmacy and we tend to typically ignore the product packaging entirely usually because it’s too plain to comment on. The designing duo, consisting of Vivi Feng and Yu Ping Chuang, have recreated the bandage and the packaging it comes in with the vivid brand of BANDiful.

The new brand takes into consideration that consumers who will use the bandages are physically hurt and have designed the packaging to be as accessible as possible. The design is minimalistic but is decorative enough to stand out.

Fruit Juice Skins

We’re all encouraged to eat more fruit and vegetables per day and what better way is there to do so but to drink fruit juice? Most of us purchase it in a cardboard carton or plastic bottle straight from the refrigerator in our local café but Japanese designer, Naoto Fukasawa, produced Japan’s first fruit constructed packaging.

The packaging is only available in Japan at the time of writing this article and is created out of the skin of the individual fruits, which have been juiced.

Parmesan Pencils

Kolle Rebbe, a design agency based in Germany, pride themselves on supporting small manufacturers of delicacies, such as cheese. The German design agency made a quite small idea into something that those who are passionate about cheese would opt for simply because of the way it’s packaged.

Using the form factor of a pencil, they designed the cheese to form that particular shape and included a sharpener, which acts as a grater to grate the cheese so you can have as much as or as little as you’d like on your meal.

Tear and Share Storage

We all need to share files on the go and when internet isn’t available to access Dropbox or Google Drive, these storage drives were funded from a Kickstarter campaign.

Gigs 2 Go manufactured these drives out of 100% post consumer recycled paper, making it renewable and biodegradable, are lightweight and cheap. They are packed in 4’s so one credit card sized package will consist of 4GB worth of storage.

Fred and Friends Salt and Pepper Shakers

When you’re in the market for a new salt and pepper shaker, finding the ideal one can be a rather mundane affair. Whilst there are some rather impressive designs around the world, they usually aren’t practical when it comes to everyday use.

Although such shakers aren’t usually wrapped in a package, Fred and Friends decided to break this trend by opting to use packaging and of a design that is similar to the packaging batteries are normally delivered in. The packaging consists of a simple cardboard back with plastic casing with the shakers enclosed. Even though it’s a rather simple design, its probably one of the most eye catching designs in this list.

Toscatti

If you’re a designer, its more than likely you’ve heard of the brand Pantone. Plastic storage container manufacturer Anagrama came up with the design of these storage containers whilst solving the problem of categorising container capacity sizes.

The packaging is straight forward, clear and eye catching whilst using a Pantone inspired colour scheme.

SVBSCRIPTION

These male subscription boxes are geared towards those who have an appreciation for design, culture and quality. Designed by RoandCo Studio based in New York City, worked on a brief from SVBSCRIPTION, which asked for packaging that would be beautiful, practical and iconic.

The result was natural wooden crates, nailed shut and wrapped in brown kraft paper for shipping.

Festina Watches

Thus far in this collection, we’ve covered two other water-based products. Now, watch manufacturers, Festina Profundo, have packaged their watches, which are waterproof, suspended in a bag of water. Designed by Scholz & Friends, the ingenious solution tells you everything you need to know without any words.