Wow… Evian Star Wars Water = Sci Fi Geeks with way too much money. Also, a student spotlight fail.
”Star Wars by Evian, is an innovative intergalactic take on design packaging. Shaped to be wielded like a lightsaber, and striking enough to distinguish which side you have chosen — Jedi or Sith, these glass water bottles will take you to a galaxy far far away.”
Source : The Dieline.com
As much as this packaging tickles the fancy of both my inner design and sci-fi nerd/geek, I just can’t help but ask myself if there really is a market for this outside of Halloween and costume parties. And if there isn’t, then you’ve designed a very lovely, but incredibly pointless piece of packaging. Also, with every glass bottle being a different size it looks fairly expensive to produce as you’ll miss out on any economies of scale.
Unfortunately, this is one of those classic design mistakes I encounter in the print world, cool idea but what about the end product? Does this enhance the brand? Can the customer make money on it? These are the types of questions you need to keep in mind when you’re out of design school and working with actual clients who have budgets, sales goals and profit margins to worry about.
From a green, sustainability and recycling perspective, I like that the bottles are glass as reuse is a nice feature, but I can’t see how that would improve Evian’s bottom line. I sincerely doubt that consumers would be refilling these with only Evian water. Since Evian is in the business of selling water, and as much of it as possible, this is an instant brand disconnect.
Now, you might be able to sell a memorabilia/collectibles company or a glass water bottle company on these concepts as there the reuse aspect is part of the inherent product value. But as plain old packaging, I’m sticking to my guns (erh light saber) and calling this ‘Pointless packaging!’
