The annual Pentawards competition is now the most significant global packaging design com- petition although it is only eight years old. The winning packs are often dis- played in important galleries around the world, and the entries reflect the enormous range of concerns faced by modern packaging across cultures, languages, products and retail formats.
While there are numerous strong entries from the Asia Pacific region and especially from Korea and Japan, par- ticipation from South Asia needs great improvement. It seems that many South Asian brand owners, designers and packaging converters are still unaware of the Pentawards and the global ac- knowledgement the awards bring. In- dustries aspiring to global levels of qual- ity and innovation need to demonstrate their understanding of materials and the packaging process on the world stage. In a hugely competitive market, taking part in this year’s Pentawards is an opportunity for the major brands, and their packaging design and devel- opment groups. In the hugely compet- itive packaging market, more entries, particularly those which are innovative and executed with excellence, need to participate in this exciting and reward- ing event.
The eighth edition of the Pentawards, the world’s major compe- tition devoted exclusively to packaging design, is open for entries from 14 April to 23 May 2014. This year the Penta- wards will be presented on 9 October 2014 in Tokyo. Packaging designers, brand owners, packaging suppliers from the world over are invited to enter their best creations in five major sectors food, beverages, body, other markets and luxury.
An international jury of 12 packag- ing design and marketing profession- als, along with its chairman, will bestow the bronze, silver, gold and platinum Pentawards in the five major sectors. The best packaging design of the year’s competition will be crowned with the prestigious and unique Diamond Pentaward. The official sponsors of the Pentawards — Esko, Luxepack and Sleever International — will each award
special prizes worth Euro 5,000. More- over, all the winning designs will be in- cluded in the third volume of Taschen’s The Package Design Book — to be re- leased in November 2014.
In 2013, the seventh edition of the Pentawards received over 1,400 entries from five continents and 49 countries. Despite the global economic crunch and the widespread packaging cost re- duction programs of major brand own- ers, the Pentawards 2013 showed a 16% increase in entries over the previous year. The international jury of Pentawards, chaired by Gérard Caron, announced the 2013 winners on 21 Sep- tember 2013 in Barcelona with the pres- tigious Diamond Pentaward for the 2013 Best of Show, won by Family Busi-
ness of Sweden, for its design for Abso- lut Unique vodka. Using new digital inkjet technology driven by a special al- gorithm, each of the 4,000,000 bottles of Absolut Unique were uniquely decorated in a special run.
