Egg Box Packaging Design

imagic egg box for Hartmann - the egg box that changed the market
Chances are this box is in your fridge. Example from Marks & Spencer

“IMAGIC” – THE EGGBOX – BRØDRENE HARTMANN A/S

This new egg box packaging design jumped Hartmann from market leaders to run away leaders ahead of all competitors. It set new standards with consumer focused visual appeal. It also gave producers much better graphic space to differentiate their brands & products. It’s dramatic success started a wave of copies but it’s still the king. It was the first break through innovation in the market for 25 years *.

Consumer Appeal

In the UK, Marks & Spencer’s egg sales grew 18% in the first 6 months after switching to the “imagic” design & that growth was purely down to the new box. M&S only sell their own brand. No brand switching involved, people were buying more eggs!.

It’s soft organic blending of egg shapes & friendly curves made the engineered angularity of previous industry standards look historic *. This was the first egg box designed to appeal to people & not just to fit a packing machine.

imagic 2

imagic2, the second generation of imagic with improved presentation & reduced material weight.
imagic2 on the packing line. New internal catches replace the traditional flap & buttons.

Following the massively successful launch of the original “buttoned” imagic we continued to work with Hartmann on next stage improvements to both presentation & efficiency.

Once again design innovations were taken through loops of production & packing trials. The resulting pack, imagic 2, replaces the traditional button flap with hidden interior catches. The new buttonless front face offers an enlarged & more useable graphic space for brand & product differentiation. The removal of the button flap reduces material & weight improving already excellent environmental credentials.

Brand owners & retailers love the larger more graphics friendly space for branding & product differentiation.

Hartmann's mini poster egg box - the traditional design of egg box

The traditional rectangular egg box with limited print space for branding & product differentiation.

Positive Environmental Qualities

Made from recyled paper imagic is 100% recycleable & biodegradeable. Further environmental benefits are because it’s smaller, lighter & stronger, reducing material used. Compact dimensions also increase efficiency throughout distribution.

International Design Awards

Design & packaging industry awards across Europe include: Prix InnovSapce – France, CroPak – Croatia, PackStar – Poland, StarPack – Spain, Packaging Design Gold – Germany & the WorldStar prize in Brazil.

multiple awards for new egg box design

Hugely successful across all of Europe, North & South America, “imagic” was a massive investment that paid off handsomely.  A great example of the power of design.

*  What came first, the egg box or the packing machine.

They evolved together.  Boxes need to run efficiently on the super high speed & very expensive packing machines in plants all over the world.  The industry would have rejected anything new that wasn’t compatible. That’s why all traditional egg boxes looked very similar & why it took so long to find a way to break the mould.

This is one of the most complex pieces of packaging design ever. The redesign encompassed significant differences in profile, geometry, centres of gravity, folding points & button positioning whilst maintaining compatibility with thousands of packing operations across the world. Don’t ever think egg box packaging design is simple!

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