Cover design and design concept for Creativ Verpacken

How to reinvent the egg

If you look far enough back in the history of food packaging, you will quite quickly locate the natural great-grandmother of packaged food: the egg! Seemingly perfect at first glance -  a simple, minimalist and yet brilliant design study of evolution.

From a packaging designer's point of view, however, this wonderful little something is far from perfect. Highly fragile, impossible to stack, difficult to open, different in weight and size, and also has a short shelf life. So it was time to reinvent the egg! The present study is based on a two-part composite designed as a molded part. The basis is a rounded cube. Via the base opening, this is filled with the edible components of a chemically stabilized egg. It is hermetically sealed with a base plate carrying a gas-filled film bubble. This compensates for volume differences during filling and prevents unwanted air pockets in the sealed egg. After the packing process, this EGG PACK can then be used in the same way as a conventional egg. For the cooking process, a thermochromic paint-based indicator has been incorporated to show the optimum cooking states in terms of raw, soft, waxy soft and hard. The opening mechanism also includes a device that will cut off the head of the egg when it is cooked.

Optimal stackability, high handling comfort and long shelf life - all this would be possible with the EGG PACK in the future.

For the PrintCity Activity Group Food Packaging we developed a cover design for the magazine Creativ Verpacken. As part of this work, we developed a complete design concept for the new packaging of eggs, created a photorealistic 3D computer graphic for visualization and took over the prepress work for printing the cover.

Here is an excerpt of the design study as it appeared in the magazine's blurb:

If you look far enough back in the history of food packaging, you will quite quickly locate the natural great-grandmother of packaged food: the egg! Seemingly perfect at first glance -  a simple, minimalist and yet brilliant design study of evolution.

From a packaging designer's point of view, however, this wonderful little something is far from perfect. Highly fragile, impossible to stack, difficult to open, different in weight and size, and also has a short shelf life. So it was time to reinvent the egg! The present study is based on a two-part composite designed as a molded part. The basis is a rounded cube. Via the base opening, this is filled with the edible components of a chemically stabilized egg. It is hermetically sealed with a base plate carrying a gas-filled film bubble. This compensates for volume differences during filling and prevents unwanted air pockets in the sealed egg. After the packing process, this EGG PACK can then be used in the same way as a conventional egg. For the cooking process, a thermochromic paint-based indicator has been incorporated to show the optimum cooking states in terms of raw, soft, waxy soft and hard. The opening mechanism also includes a device that will cut off the head of the egg when it is cooked.

Optimal stackability, high handling comfort and long shelf life - all this would be possible with the EGG PACK in the future.

The cover of this issue was produced on behalf of PrintCity Activity Group Food Packaging with the kind support of Model Kramp GmbH. Printed on M-Real Carta Integra 210 gsm and finished with Miraval Magic Gold from Merck.