Who doesn’t love good packaging? In the dark abyss that is the shopping centre aisle, filled with hundreds of similar products, great packaging is a beacon of light. It catches our attention, draws us to a product and frankly just gives us something interesting to look at.

With that in mind, we’ve put together a list of the best quirky, innovative and creative packaging to hit the shelf in 2015. Take a look for some design inspo and possibly some products to add to your shopping list.

Multi-purpose packaging

Multi-purpose packaging is a fantastic way for brands to offer added value and build relationships. Here are a couple of great examples.

Aquilequa Wines                         

Like a really underwhelming transformer, Aquilequa’s packaging has more than meets the eye. On the shelf it looks like a stylish, simple elegantly designed wooden carry box, open it out however and you’re left with a fantastic reusable wine rack.

Eroski Cereals

The Spanish supermarket chain created fantastic colourful animal characters for the packaging of their cereals and then gave the children the ability to turn the cereal box into little toys of the character when they’re done.

Hand drawn packaging       

2015 has seen an explosion of hand-drawn packaging and typography hitting the shelf. We love it because it gives brands a real feel of personality, character and human accessibility and it helps that it often looks fantastic.

Love in a cup

Love in a cup has completely zoned in on all things cute and with a name like that, how could they not. Their packaging and typography are completely hand drawn and they even use the teabag tags to add a little extra personality to the mix.

Mama Mafia

Mama Mafia is a true cultural melting pot, a Russian restaurant that specialises in Italian and Japanese cuisine. Their packaging features hand drawn comic images focusing on the mafia and samurai fusion, that may sound aggressive but the hand drawn comic execution comes off looking fun and fresh.

Sustainable Packaging                                                  

As our environmental awareness continues to grow so to does the innovative techniques designers are coming up with to create eco-friendly, sustainable packaging. Some of this year’s best examples are:

PaperBoy Wines

Paperboy Wines proudly uses 100% recycled material to make their bottles. The bottles are made from a thin lining of recycled plastic inside a paper pulp bottle. Not only are the bottles made from completely recycled materials, they are also so much lighter than glass bottles that they use significantly less fuel in transportation.

Mug Pub

Mug Pub is another example of trading glass alcohol bottles out for paper pulp containers. Mug pub transforms the takeaway six-pack of glass bottles out and replaces it with 4 pints of paper mugs café takeaway style.

This Too Shall Pass

This Too shall pass takes sustainable packaging to the next level. It’s a packaging concept by Swedish design team Tomorrow Machine. The name ‘This Too Shall Pass’ is a reference to the fact that the packaging is completely biodegradable.

The packaging for Basmati rice is made from beeswax and is printed with soy ink. The wax is thin and can be easily torn apart in the same way you would peel a mandarin.

They have also designed an olive oil bottle made from caramelised sugar coated with beeswax. It is opened in the same way you crack an egg. When you’re done the packaging melts away under water.

Transparent packaging

Trident Gum

This is a fantastic design for Trident Xtra Care Gum that hasn’t gone to market yet. The design uses a see-through window on the front of the packet to transform the pieces of gum into teeth. It’s simple, clever and very effective.

Just Laid Eggs

This cheekily named egg brand wanted to highlight the benefits of extremely fresh, locally sourced eggs. The execution of their packaging really drives home the idea of freshness with caricatures of hens ‘laying’ eggs using a gap in the packaging.

Minimal packaging                                 

Sometimes less is more and so we’d be remiss not to include a great example of minimalistic design.

Redberry

Redberry shoes completely stripped back their packaging to be ultra functional. The packaging features solid colours with the brand name and instructions on how the packaging should be used. Simple.

There you have it. Have you seen great packaging you think should be included on the list? Hit us up on Facebook and let us know.