A plastic sliding key mechanism, designed to make opening tuna cans a far easier task for those with difficulty opening conventional pull-back tab mechanisms, has been selected from 20 finalist entries from local tertiary packaging design students to win this year's Cormack Innovation Awards.
With students this year briefed to produce packaging designs on the theme “Products for People with Accessibility Constraints”, the winning design, by Dominic See of the University of NSW (UNSW) was nominated by judges as the most outstanding solution for solving a common packaging accessibility problem.
See's design topped a field of finalists that had been culled from an original list of over 150 entries submitted to this year's awards, sponsored and organised by Cormack Packaging.
See's solution to the accessibility challenge of opening tuna cans, which typically are not only difficult for the elderly or those with disabilities to get into but create sharp edges causing risks of cutting injuries, involved replacing the conventional pull-back metal tab with a plastic sliding key that can also double as a fork substitute for “on-the-go” consumption.
For his efforts, See will receive an internship with Cormack Packaging, as well as a cash prize.
Runner-up design was PryTop, a levered closure enabling easier opening of plastic tubs such as yoghurt containers, by student designer Michael Rudd of the University of Western Sydney (UWS).
Third place was awarded to University of Technology Sydney (UTS) student Shelley Javier for her Clean & Easy KetchupKap, a new cap design to provide easy grip and opening, and a cleaner experience, in using plastic ketchup bottles.
Javier's design was also recognised for its sustainability features, being named as one of two recipients of the 2013 Sustainability Award from the Australian Packaging Covenant (APC). She shared the award with Mariana Helene Abdo, also from UTS, who produced a design for an easy refillable bottle made from medium-density polyethylene (MDPE).
Three highly commended awards were also presented in the main Cormack Awards. These went to: Jonathan Conway of UTS for an easy-open motor oil container; Shane Prasad of UWS for an Ezy Squeezy sauce bottle; and Jonathan Li of UTS for Posh, a bottle cap for laundry detergents which contains both a measuring cup and a pump mechanism.
The Australian Institute of Packaging (AIP), for its part, named dual winners of its 2013 AIP Scholarship awards. These went to two UTS students, Justin Chong and James Bossi.
While UTS industrial design students featured heavily among the winners and place getters in the various award categories, it was UNSW that was named the winner of this year's Perpetual Trophy from Cormack. The trophy is awarded to the outstanding tertiary design institution participating in the awards, and was UNSW's fourth such title.
Cormack Packaging's managing director, Mathew Cormack, praised the innovative approaches to solving packaging accessibility challenges presented by the award entrants.
“The awards show what you can achieve when you have smart minds looking at smart solutions, and there were certainly some very clever designs here this year,” he said.
He said he hoped programs such as the awards would encourage students to pursue careers in the packaging industry.
“The FMCG industry is one of the biggest in the world, and it tends to be recession proof, so I would urge students to consider making it their career and use their creativity to influence the future,” Cormack said.
The Cormack Innovation Awards are now in their 12th year.
UNSW student Dominic See's Cormack Innovation Award winning design for an easy-to-open tuna can.
