Multidisciplinary Student Project as a Teaching Platform for Package Design

摘要

Successful package design requires knowledge from various fields. Therefore, teaching package designonly from one disciplinary perspective is a limited approach. The problem-based learning (PBL) method combinedwith a real client brief is a potential way to teach the manifold nature of package design for students. This paper illustratesa package design project that was conducted as part of a multidisciplinary master-level course. A multidisciplinaryand -cultural student team was given a task to provide new package design solutions for three wellknownconsumer product brands. The project lasted nine months and was supervised both by industry partners andacademic teaching staff. The multidisciplinary student team was able to achieve excellent results by using the diversityof their knowledge base. The students had undergraduate degrees in business management, marketing, engineeringand graphic design. The team learned not only from the industry partners who gave the briefs, but the interdisciplinaryand intercultural learning that happened within the group was the key to the successful end results.The new package design concepts turned out to be realistic solutions comprising various technical, financial, functional,informational and emotional aspects of packaging. The concepts also expressed the brand identity of theclients in a new light. The results of the project were pleasing for all three parties involved: the students, the teachers,and the industry partners. The case shows that teaching package design in multidisciplinary student teams andinvolving companies in student projects can be very fruitful. The described project illustrates how problem-basedlearning approach combined with actual packaging briefs can lead to excellent learning results from the universitypoint of view as well as provide companies with new insights on package design.