Development of a DuraPulp packaging demonstrator

Sammanfattning: Plastic and paper are well known materials, each and everyone can find it in their homes. Paper made from cellulose has been produced for over hundred years and also plastic is a very well-known material, but still there is not too much to find about a combination of these two materials. The objective of this thesis is to develop a packaging, which highlights the unique properties of the new material DuraPulp, containing cellulose and the polymer PLA (polylactic acid). The unique properties are obtained when DuraPulp is activated with heat pressing. The main goal with this project was to demonstrate possibilities with this new material, when designing a packaging demonstrator. The method used in this project is the Design Thinking process, an iterative method splitting the process into six steps. To obtain knowledge about the material first pulp and PLA (polylactic acid) was studied seperately. The material properties and the manufacturing method, wet moulding and heat pressing was thoroughly studied, at the workshop in Varberg and interviews was held. With gained knowledge about the material and the manufacturing method, the market segment and the target group was defined. With those two segments defined ideation and prototyping occurred. A package design, which balances; being a demonstrator highlighting DuraPulp’s properties, testing new technics and challenging the material as well as appeal brand owners and converters, was developed. The designed product is a packaging for the on-ear headphone Zinken, from Urbanears. The packaging is designed to cover the headphone like a second skin, it will promote and display it in stores, but also protect the headphone after being sold, as a case. The packaging consist of one part, with a frontside and a backside, with a specially designed folding and sealing technique for an easy opening and re-closing. It will be coloured throughout for an ideal match with the headphones.