master-diseno-packaging-01 Labbel: Bath Products Range, Aida Radresa, Alba Morote, Laura Homs

Master in Packaging Design

Discover how to communicate, both formally and graphically, the attributes of a product through its packaging, lending significance and meaning to its content. The Master’s Degree in Packaging Design will teach you to design sustainable, innovative and efficient packaging.

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Presentation

To launch a product on the market today, it has to have a functional packaging design that meets consumers’ needs, but at the same time we have to be mindful of the environmental impact. It’s important to incorporate eco-design criteria and to optimize resources through the use of recycled materials.

The Master in Packaging Design will offer you the necessary tools to design and execute any comprehensive packaging project, taking into account strategy and branding and providing a strategic solution to the needs of the client and the environment. You will offer a response to a minimum of 12 practical cases dealing with topics such as gourmet packaging, consumer packaging, packaging redesign, eco-design and innovation, new materials.

The profile of students in this master’s programme is people who are passionate about packaging design, motivated to create new packaging with an objective, and who want to specialize in a highly changing sector where you have to keep up with the new trends demanded by the market.

Access and Admission Requirements: An official university degree, or equivalent, in Graphic Design, Product Design or Product Engineering. Knowledge of graphic design software.

Where can I study packaging design?

If you are passionate about the world of product design and want to get specialized but you are still not sure about where to study packaging design, you should know that Elisava represents a unique opportunity to enter this field.

Elisava is one of the leading university schools of design. Our advanced training system, which combines theoretical instruments with practice in real projects, will allow you to have an interdisciplinary and integrated vision of packaging design. In addition, you will have the opportunity to train with a team of professors with extensive and outstanding experience in the sector.

For all these reasons, our master in packaging design can offer you the necessary tools to become a successful designer, specialized in the conception of packaging projects and adapted to the needs of today’s products and with a clear vision of the future.

Master in Packaging in Barcelona

In a changing and highly competitive environment, packaging design has become a highly valued discipline by most companies that want to attract sales by creating differentiating products. Packaging forms an important part of the purchasing process and represents the first contact between the consumer or client and the product.

In Barcelona, as the centre of growing economic and industrial activity, studying packaging can become a unique opportunity to explore different realities and learn first-hand about the emerging needs of the sector. A multitude of companies and organizations with an important presence at national and international level coexist in the city and have leading professionals in the field of packaging design. From Elisava, we try to establish links so that students can feel these realities and complement their training practice with experience in real projects.

Without any doubt, studying a master in packaging design in Barcelona can open the doors to a field of design in which there is still a long way to go and which requires well-trained professionals with a creative vision and open thinking. New forms, technologies and materials play a decisive role in the packaging of the present and the future, and, consequently, in the conception and meaning of a product.

master-diseno-packaging-02 Workshop with La Casa de Carlota
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Objectives

  • Learning to present a packaging project based on naming, lettering, applied typography and art direction.
  • Understanding the lines of work that designers follow to achieve a successful product.
  • Detecting customer needs and designing packaging that meets the demands of different sectors.
  • Creating more efficient and sustainable packaging that promotes good design and the optimal use of materials.
  • Obtaining a more in-depth knowledge of the different materials used in the industry: systems for creating packaging, prepress and printing, and quality controls.
  • Understanding the factors that determine the production and selection of a container for a specific product.
Highlights

Master in Packaging Design programme

1 An introduction to packaging, history and recent developments

Theoretical classes accompanied by short exercises in research and analysis.

1.1 Cultural and social origins of packaging
1.2 Aesthetics and trend analysis
1.3 Brand typologies and copyright
1.4 Packaging legislation

 2 Design and preesentation tools

Theoretical/practical classes are complemented with exercises so you can test out and consolidate the content you have learned.

2.1 Creative writing: naming and storytelling
2.2 Introduction to the concepts of calligraphy, lettering and typography
2.3 Microtypography and labelling workshop
2.4 Techniques for presenting in public

 3 Branding in the packaging environment

Theoretical sessions introduce concepts and contents that will be applied in different design workshops.

3.1 Introduction to the world of planners and planning
3.2 Strategic process and brand identity creation
3.3 Brand architecture: brand construction models
3.4 Brand building in content and form. Brand vision and mission
3.5 Creating the 360° brand experience

 4 Packaging workshops

Practical workshops are supervised by expert professionals in the sector. In each, you will be able to respond to a case using your usual working method.

4.1 Unconventional packaging. Conceptualizing and designing an experience
4.2 Packaging redesign
4.3 Communication and mass consumer packaging
4.4 Branding and mass consumer packaging
4.5 Packaging for cosmetics and fragrances
4.6 Packaging for wine
4.7 Packaging for gourmet products: Art direction and food photography

 5 Eco-design of containers and packaging

Theoretical classes introduce concepts and contents that will be applied in different design workshops.

5.1 Eco-design criteria for packaging
5.2 Assessing the environmental impact of a container
5.3 Analysis of a product’s life cycle
5.4 Optimization of resources in packaging design: weight and volume reduction, use of recycled materials, reuse of packaging and recyclability

 6 Design and management tools

Theoretical/practical classes are complemented with exercises so you can test out and consolidate the content you have learned.

6.1 Typesetting
6.2 Sketching, layouts and modelling
6.3 Neuromarketing: How does buying work? Shopping and the human brain
6.4 Protecting your designs: Intellectual property, industrial property and patents
6.5 Project management and assessment

 7 Packaging materials, prepress and printing

You’ll learn about the systems used to create packaging, from materials to quality control systems.

7.1 Packaging materials
7.2 Systems for manufacturing and creating packaging
7.3 Prepress and printing systems
7.4 Quality controls
7.5 Labelling, marking and coding

 8 Marketing: strategies for communication and promotion

You’ll learn to implement a communication and promotion strategy for a product and its packaging.

8.1 Consumer, company and market.
8.2 Marketing as a business philosophy
8.3 Packaging as a business and communication strategy
8.4 Packaging as a product/market need

 9 Practical workshops

Each workshop is supervised by a different professional, an expert in the sector, who will propose new packaging design solutions.

9.1 Eco-packaging
9.2 Structural packaging: An introduction to forms
9.3 Structural packaging: Innovation and materials
9.4 Structural packaging: Concept and printing
9.5 Minimal packaging: High-value small formats
9.6 E-commerce packaging
9.7 Standard packaging

 10 Master’s Final Project

The last module consists of completing a comprehensive packaging project, addressing both the graphic and structural aspects, completing renders, and producing prototypes on a 1:1 scale.

If you want to know more about the Master in Packaging Design download the brochure here:
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Do you want to know more about the Masters’ School?

Each academic year, students with very diverse professional and cultural profiles of more than 80 nationalities from all over the world attend their master’s or postgraduate training at Elisava. We want to promote connections and networks among students beyond the context of each master’s degree to promote the exchange of knowledge through very diverse projects: we organize interdisciplinary workshops and conferences; transdisciplinary projects with students from several master’s degrees; collaborations with companies, institutions and NGOs…

Interdisciplinary workshops Collaborations with companies, institutions and NGOs Elisava Masters’ Talks and lectures Elisava Alumni

Masters’ Scholarships

Do you want to study the Master in Packaging Design at Elisava? In this section you will be able to check all the information on the annual call for scholarships, which recognize, reward and disseminate the talent and excellence of future master’s students.

Elisava Masters’ Scholarships