Packaging is the ultimate vehicle for design: industrial, graphic, and typographic design are all put to the test to create an impression so meaningful that it converts currency into consumerism. This ...
Ukraine is rapidly developing its own packaging market. According to Upakovka, the leading Ukrainian packaging magazine, 40% of the country 's 500-million-dollar packaging market opts for paperboard, with corrugated taking about half.
Express is a paperboard packaging producer in Makeevka, a coal mining town in the Donetsk region. The history of Express began during the last years of the USSR when workers of the state-owned coal mine organized a package printing co-op. The mine was about to be closed, creating a pool of work hungry entrepreneurs. The co-op started to buy printing equipment and soon realized that there were no skilled printers available. Despite the lack of experience, Express decided to expand and invest in the state-of-the-art printing and die-cutting equipment focusing on personnel training.
By the year 2000, production picked up and a package designed and manufactured by Express won the prestigious international award in the WorldStar packaging contest. The winning package featured a one-piece paperboard carton with distinctive locks in butterfly or sunflower shape. The carton with sunflower lock was designed and fabricated for Khalva, a syrupy sunflower seed dessert product made by Druzhkovskaya food factory located in small Ukrainian village in Donetsk region.
Bellis Cosmetics is using cardboard packaging in the form of decorated display boxes, providing good product presentation for its line of children's cosmetics. This company that specializes in low cost products, however, selected this elaborate package for its shampoo-cream-gel gift set for kids.
Stiff vodka competition
In present day Ukraine, where capitalism has been taking root for the last 15 years, there are over 100 distilleries and wine producers supplying Ukrainian and Russian markets with old and new vodka brands. However, only a few of them stand out with quality liquor brands that are gaining recognition in the mature markets of Western Europe, the U.S., and Canada.
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