Mars Project II: Space Food Packaging Design

Design: Mario Mimoso
Project Type: Concept
Location: Barcelona
Packaging Contents: Cultured meat and fish, cereals, vegetables, juices

Over the different missions, astronauts usually find space food unappetizing. This has psychological consequences both in the intake of food and in the mental fatigue of the space mission, which may last months or even years. An eventual colony on Mars should be provided with food from the Earth as long as it is not possible to produce its own food on the Red Planet. In this project, I’ve tried to design keeping in mind these two different scenarios: the journey to Mars and the everyday life in the colony.

The main concept behind the designs is weightlessness. The products have been set in an low gravity scenario and they are represented in a realistic vector illustration style full of details, glossiness and bright, saturated colors in order to be as appetizing as possible. Besides no gravity, there is also a sense of movement. Every product has its own type of movement: explosive circular movement, straight linear movement, spiral movement… and also its own direction.

The design is intended to be minimal: the logo from the space missions, the food illustrations and the basic nutritional information, simpler than it is here on Earth, without any other commercial input. The packaging has been designed in order to be user friendly, simple, understandable and ultimately aesthetically beautiful and functional: the use of the red color will stimulate the crew’s appetite and the vivid color illustrations will soften the probable lack of taste of boring space food.

What’s Unique?
The proposed foods are not just foodstuff, they’re almost complete meals. From the simplest powdered milk and breakfast preparations to vitamin juices and nuts mixes and from dried vegetables that only needs a small amount of water to be fresh again to artificial, clean 3D-printed meat and fish bars with high nutritional values that can replace a meal.