Upcycled Organic Plantain Chips Packaging - Chip Bag by Nik Ingersoll

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DI: What is the main principle, idea and inspiration behind your design?

NI : The inspiration for this design came from the indigenous plantain farmers that we partnered with to bring this product to market. I took a single plantain leaf from the farm and created this fresh, technicolor look and feel.

DI: What has been your main focus in designing this work? Especially what did you want to achieve?

NI : I wanted to create the tropical feeling of the brand and mesh it with exotic flavor combinations like Brazilian Barbecue, Himalayan Pink Salt, Acapulco Lime and others. It needed to speak to how unique the product offering is in the market and also grab the attention of consumers in an otherwise boring place in the store.

DI: What are your future plans for this award winning design?

NI : The design will be launching globally in all Whole Foods stores and in partnership with Amazon in January 2018.

DI: How long did it take you to design this particular concept?

NI : I started on this design in June of 2017 and it was finalized August 2017.

DI: Why did you design this particular concept? Was this design commissioned or did you decide to pursuit an inspiration?

NI : This was designed for a new line of flavor-first, organic plantain chips made from upcycled cooking bananas (plantains).

DI: Is your design being produced or used by another company, or do you plan to sell or lease the production rights or do you intent to produce your work yourself?

NI : It will be used for the banana snack brand, Barnana.

DI: Where there any other designs and/or designers that helped the influence the design of your work?

NI : Salvador Dalí, René Magritte

DI: Who is the target customer for his design?

NI : The Barnana brand is targeted towards consumers that want to live a healthier active lifestyle. However, the wonderful thing about this design is that it is approachable for almost anyone at scale.

DI: How did you come up with the name for this design? What does it mean?

NI : It truly is the first product of its kind, so it was easy to name.

DI: Which design tools did you use when you were working on this project?

NI : Photoshop, Illustrator, Cannon DSLR, pen, pencil, banana leafs, seasonings, plantain chips and a big smile on my face.

DI: What is the most unique aspect of your design?

NI : The technicolor plantain leaf

DI: Is your design influenced by data or analytical research in any way? What kind of research did you conduct for making this design?

NI : Yes. I took in IRI, Neilson and store-level data in the salty snack set to determine the most popular flavors and discover up coming trends. In addition, I conducted a survey of over 2,000 of Barnana's core consumers to get their ideas on flavor preferences, needs and desires in a salty snack product. The data was prepared in Excel for analysis in SPSS (e.g., shortened question titles, recoded data where necessary for further analysis). Analysis was done in SPSS and output was exported to Excel for further formatting and analysis where appropriate. The open-ended question regarding dream flavor was analyzed in NVivo first and then re-coded in Excel to be analyzed in SPSS along with the other variables. ANOVA tests were conducted to suss out significant correlations between variables throughout.

DI: How did you decide to submit your design to an international design competition?

NI : This package design and product concept is one of a kind and I think it stands a decent chance in competition.

DI: What did you learn or how did you improve yourself during the designing of this work?

NI : Sometimes the most simple elements take the longest amount of time to execute perfectly while some of the largest elements happen quickly with ease.