PACKAGING DESIGN

Institution: TOBB ETU, Visual Communication Design | 2024
Instructors: Alper Yıldırım & Mert Aslan
Semester: 1 (3rd and 4th year students)

Course Brief

This course examines packaging design as a combination of visual identity, physical structure, material experience, and cultural expression. Students explore how packaging functions not only as a container, but also as a brand touchpoint, symbolic object, and storytelling surface.

Across three projects, students work with folding systems, structural prototypes, minimalist visual strategies, surface patterns, and autobiographical narratives. The course balances functional packaging principles with experimental and concept-driven approaches, encouraging students to connect form, material, communication, and user experience.







Learning Outcomes

By the end of the course, students will be able to:

  • Analyse packaging systems in relation to structure, function, usability, and communication.

  • Develop packaging concepts that combine visual identity, three-dimensional form, and material behaviour.

  • Construct accurate prototypes through cutting, scoring, folding, and assembly.

  • Apply typography, colour, hierarchy, and surface design to packaging communication.

  • Consider user interaction, opening rituals, visibility, and tactile experience.

  • Use symbolism, narrative, and cultural references to create conceptually meaningful packaging.

  • Make informed material choices with attention to sustainability and production.

 

Project 01

Minimalist Packaging Redesign

Students select an existing packaged product and redesign it using principles of clarity, restraint, and reduction. Typography, colour, layout, and structural decisions are simplified to improve readability, functionality, and visual coherence.

The project asks students to identify what is essential to a product’s communication and to remove unnecessary visual elements without weakening its identity or shelf presence.

Selected Student Works

 
 
 
 

Project 02

Thematic Pattern Gift-Wrap Series

Students develop a collection of three gift-wrap patterns based on a conceptual theme. Each pattern explores a different aspect of the selected idea while remaining part of a coherent visual family.

Through modular repetition, rhythm, contrast, alignment, and colour, students investigate how surface systems can create both variation and consistency across a series.

Selected Student Works

 
 
 
 

Project 03

Personal Identity Packaging

Students design a symbolic package that communicates an aspect of their personal identity, history, emotions, values, or cultural background. The package may contain a real or fictional product, but its form and visual language must support an autobiographical concept.

The project explores packaging as a narrative object. Students use structure, typography, colour, texture, material, and interaction metaphorically to create an emotionally and conceptually coherent design.

Selected Student Works