Round Up of the Best Christmas Packaging in 2014

Written by Mark Chapman, the Sales Manager for UK based custom and bespoke packaging specialists, Project Packaging.

Packaging designs can be creative at the best of times, but around the festive period they definitely step it up a notch. In 2014 we saw some great Christmas themed bespoke packaging designs, and here’s a round up of some of the best.

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1. Robot Roy Nutcracker Toy

Traditional toy packaging is always a popular choice when it comes to Christmas time, and this Robot Roy Nutcracker Toy, designed by Robot Food, resembles a traditional wooden nutcracker with an on-brand robotic twist.

Robot Food gave their clients this brightly coloured robot packaged in a beautiful bespoke black box. The boxes edge has been decorated with festive nuts and bolts illustrations and applied in a luxurious gold foil finish, making it a beautifully designed Christmas gift.

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2. The Butler’s Pantry Mince Pies

The Butler’s Pantry has branded their cakes and mince pies boxes and tins with a festive theme. Using a subtle warm-grey snowflake pattern for the labels background, with alternating red-orange and mahogany typography, the colour palette is strongly festive, but not overpowering.

The minimalist design works really well for this packaging design, allowing the food to remain the main attraction with well-crafted statements creating anticipation around the contents.

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3. Marks & Spencer

Marks & Spencer have created this ‘Santa’s Workshop’ packaging full of gingerbread men and other Christmas time sweets. Being Santa’s workshop, you can see elves putting up Christmas lights, and even Santa himself waving outside. It’s a fun take on the usual Christmas food boxes, and will certainly delight the kids.

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4. Gail’s Artisan Bakery

Gail’s Artisan Bakery has packaged their Christmas bakes with a festive feel last year. A simple design with red and white tags is reminiscent of the holiday season without being cliché, whilst still staying true to Gail’s Artisan Bakery’s branding.

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5. Page Three Hundred MMXIV Fall/Winter Collection

Page Three Hundred is an independent clothing label based in Turin, Italy. For their fall/winter packaging they are wrapping their shirts in paper, sealed with a rectangular red and white branded sticker. The packages are then placed in a bag and closed with a custom wax seal. The fall/winter packaging is an elegant unique process created for customers by Page Three Hundred, adding brand value and creating something distinct and modern for Christmas packaging.

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6. Starbucks

In 2014 Starbucks packaged their Christmas coffee blend for people to take home and make themselves. The packages include mini sachets, making it a perfect Christmas present. The packaged product comes complete with Starbuck’s branding, with an image of their iconic red cups on the front, in a whimsical wintery Christmas scene.

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7. Morrison’s Mince Pies

Morrison’s have developed their visual identity for their Christmas 2014 range. The design is inspired by traditional Christmas markets with personalised touches to celebrate Morrison’s heritage. The colours green, red and gold are used in the branding, making use of the traditional Christmas colour scheme.

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8. Tuborg Pilsner Limited Edition Christmas Can

Tuborg Pilsner have launched a limited edition king can for the festive season available in 1 litre and 750ml king cans. The 1 litre can is the largest two piece aluminium beverage can available on the global market, brewed especially for the winter season. The can displays a festive scene, complete with snow and Santa enjoying a beer himself. He deserves a much needed beverage after the night he’s had.

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9. Cheeseburger Gift Wrap
Christmas not only bought us some great packaging designs, but also some great ways to package your presents. There’s nothing better than packaging your Christmas presents in a fun way, and this cheeseburger gift wrap is certainly something that will put a smile on a loved one’s face. The gift wrap set is made up of two sheets of bread bun, one burger, one cheese, one lettuce, and one tomato. Not your traditional Christmas gift wrap but it will certainly look appealing under the tree!

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10. Crabtree & Evelyn
Crabtree & Evelyn packaged their spiced fudge with a festive edition tin designed to look like a shop front. The design was made up of seasonal colours, using bold reds and gold colours, even displaying a Christmas wreath on the front door.

Packaging design is a creative outlet at the best of times, but Christmas is when designs really come to life, adding more than just a Christmas hat to your packaging’s logo. Christmas 2014 certainly showed us some great packaging designs, whether it came to festive designs, rebranding the design using festive colours, or including a winter scene in the branding including the main man, Santa himself. It’s a great time to play around with designs, and hopefully we’ll see more bespoke packaging designs in 2015, I look forward to seeing what Christmas brings!