Packaging Solutions: Positive About Print
Alexir Creative has launched daily packaging toolkits to teach children and parents about carton packaging design during lockdown.
The company hopes to inspire a younger generation to get creative and consider design and cardboard engineering as a future career whilst spending time at home.
Free daily downloadable packaging activities so far include an Easter Bunny, a grocery store worker, a pizza and a rocket. Packaging toolkits do not require any specialised equipment with most toolkits only calling for the basic handcraft tools such as scissors, colouring in pencils and glue.
Launched on Monday 6 April, The Packaging Toolkit series created by Alexir Creative included a number of daily easy to make home activities, such as Make Your Own Everyday Hero giving children and parents at home the opportunity to make cartons featuring an Alexir factory worker, an NHS staff member and a farm worker
Each week Alexir Creative will release a new theme and series of templates on their website with ‘how-to’ instructions on Instagram
The next theme to be released on 27 April is ‘Make your own Grocery Store cartons’ featuring a tomato punnet, a tea carton, a snack pot and a food hamper. This will help to educate children about numerous different types of packaging designs that can be found in a grocery store. The aim of the whole Packaging Toolkit project is to help parents with activities for their children whilst schools are closed. An entire bank of the worksheets can be found on the Alexir Website
The Alexir Partnership collaborated with the Design Museum to launch the first week, creating an Easter challenge for the Young Design Museum Programme. This Easter challenge was uploaded to the Design Museum’s website on Sunday 12 April and resulted in over 2000 downloads from people at home.
Alexir is encouraging people to share their creations using the #Alexirkidsathome hashtag.
Claire Summersby, sales and marketing manager at The Alexir Partnership, said: ‘We have been delighted with the overwhelming positive response to the packaging toolkits, especially from the children themselves. We ran a competition at the end of the first week to win a Todhunter Easter hamper and the level of effort that went into the colour and design of the five packs was outstanding.’
Laura Casali, marketing manager at The Design Museum, added: ‘This wonderful initiative from Alexir Partnership helped us to engage those of the Design Museum's audience with young families in a creative project that I am sure brought a lot of joy to what was otherwise a rather unusual Easter Sunday.’
The Packaging Toolkits are aimed at children between the ages of six and 12 and are uploaded every week day to the Alexir Partnership website
Every week a new theme is revealed, and the campaign will run until the children go back to school.
