Conceptual Packaging

Experimentation

Conceptual Packaging

Experimenting with the future of packaging

By AIR COMPANY

Published May 9, 2023

Our planet and its climate are rapidly changing, and with it, our approach to sustainability. Think about packaging and how significant a role it plays in our day-to-day lives. With increasing levels of both greenhouse gas emissions and waste from product production, the demand for sustainable packaging solutions has never been higher.

With this in mind, we challenged ourselves to think beyond the box and experiment with design that explores both the physical and ecological footprint of our consumer goods packaging. We explored conceptual forms of packaging that work with nature, rather than against it (staying true to who we are), while pushing the boundaries of what may be deemed physically possible.

The three concepts, Void, Store and Decay highlight three different ways to think about sustainability. These experiments are entirely speculative–without the constraints of actual production we can create forms that defy expectations.

Void

How can we do more with less? More so, can something be done with the things we already have? At AIR COMPANY, we have established our ability to take natural elements and utilize them to solve problems, but can the same be done for packaging? With a product marketplace plagued by a disposable ethos and centered around fiberboard, paper, glue, magnets, plastic coatings—you name it—we wanted to flip the script and explore using what nature has already given us.

This first exploration delves into the fundamentally additive process of traditional package creation—that heavily relies on placing one material on top of another—and explores the contrary possibility of a subtractive process that prioritizes using natural elements in their raw form and reducing them to create sustainable packaging solutions.

At AIR COMPANY, we recognize the need to challenge ourselves and generate creative climate solutions across industries, so we embarked on this design experiment to push the boundaries of traditional packaging, purposefully relieving ourselves of the burden of what can be done in order to focus on what could be done.

This exercise will knowingly result in some furled eyebrows and bring climate naysayers eagerly to their keyboards, but hey, at least they will be talking about it, right? If this endeavor fosters any conversation around how we can collectively challenge ourselves to look inward and start generating creative climate solutions, we’ll consider it a success.

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