Drew's Salsa (USA)

From TheDieline.com:

When I graduated from Portfolio Center, I was one of 4 designers emerging from a mostly advertising-focused program. Now 10 years later, under the indefatigable leadership of Hank Richardson (call him Cowboy), the school's design program is one of the most highly-respected in the country. Graduates are instantly snapped up by Pentagram, SamataMason, Landor, TurnerDuckworth and everywhere in between.

For those unfamiliar with Portfolio Center, the design program is two years and full-time. No summers off, softies. At the time, I considered it boot camp for artsy people. You may enter as one of those who like to hide in the corner and sketch dark scenes in your moleskines, but you'll emerge a living, breathing, communicating, hard-working, deep-concepting, business-understanding employable designer. Not a bad exchange for your quarterly tuition.

So, I'm happy to present a sampling of recent graduate (and almost-graduate) packaging work, along with some brief project descriptions. Take a look, and hire 'em if you can. Like any good package, they won't be on the shelf for long.

Drew's Salsa: Jason Puckett

"Meant to target sports fans directly, the design of Chef Drew's Organic Salsa was inspired by common elements found in all sports. The new label invites fans for more than just a tasty dip by taking the form of a ticket to the game. The Drew Heat ranking system uses stadium seat locations to represent how hot you like your sports action, from the Upper Level to the Field Box."

Comments:

"I really like Claire Courtade’s line of cube shaped juice boxes. (Putting round things into square packages is a pretty good metaphor for packaging in general!) The pull-up leaves looks great on those cubes. A lot of us might have just used color alone as differentiation between fruit varieties. I really admire how she added a fruit-specific skin pattern to each box. The striations on the skin of the apple, the pores on the skin of an orange, etc. A nice, closely-observed detail."

"I used to work for a design firm in Atlanta, and we regularly hired Portfolio Center graduates. I have no affiliation to the school (I am a SCAD graduate myself) but I would always recommend a PC student to anyone looking to hire a great, fresh designer. It was always a pleasure looking at their portfolios - they were consistently better than the porfolios from any other school!"

"Thank you so much for sharing this. I really love looking at student work. The fresh thinking is inspiring."

"I'm a PC grad. Loved the school!!!"

Year: 2007
Source: The Dieline.com: The Package Design Blog