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Mutabor designs packaging with responsibility

The Hamburg design studio Mutabor launched its own packaging unit at the beginning of 2022. It is under the leadership of long-standing employees Ipek Molvali and Moritz Carstens. As in the main office, the new company's design philosophy centres on responsibility towards society.

Marketing and design have always been an integral part of the packaging world. Even in ancient times, stamps on amphorae indicated where a product came from and, above all, who made it. However, it is rare for an established marketing and design agency to set up a separate branch exclusively for packaging design. But this is exactly what Hamburg-based Mutabor Design GmbH did at the beginning of this year.

Mutabor Packaging GmbH is the name of the new unit of the Hamburg-based agency, which is thus pouring its many years of expertise in the packaging sector into its own form. Ipek Molvali, who has been working at the design agency since 2015, will take over the management. The trained marketing specialist has over 15 years of professional experience in the field and has already worked for clients such as Bahlsen, Bosch, Rewe, Edeka, Henkel and Krombacher during this time. As managing partner, she plans to expand the Focus on sustainability and social compatibility from packaging to lay.

It is therefore fully in line with the parent company, according to which the needs of a company, but also those of the individual consumer, should no longer be at the centre of the design. Instead, packaging should be considered from the perspective of society as a whole. Society-centred design is what the Hamburg agency calls this approach. The idea: If a product has a positive impact on society as a whole, then it must inevitably have a competitive advantage and thus assert themselves on the market. So it comes as no surprise when the newly appointed Managing Director says: "Packaging must take responsibility. At Mutabor, we develop design solutions that have a positive impact on the environment and society."

Moritz Carstens (left), Executive Creative Director, and Ipek Molvali (right), Managing Partner. (Image: Mutabor)

Also Moritz Carstens, who works in the new unit as Executive Creative Directorsees sustainable design as a necessity for successful packaging: "It's frightening to see how much waste is produced by packaging and how long it takes for certain materials such as plastic to degrade. We endeavour to advise our customers to ensure that sustainable decisions are made in production processes and in the end product." Carstens studied fine art and communication design and brings ten years of experience to the new unit, including work for Coca-Cola, Hansaplast and Osram.

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Many years of experience in the industry

But what experience does the agency have in the packaging sector to date that it would now need its own limited company specifically for packaging design? A lot has come together since it was founded in 1998. As early as 2001, the Hamburg-based founders Johannes Plass and Heinrich Paravicini standardised the previously different international designs of adidas packaging. Previously, the sportswear giant had neither a cross-continental brand colour scheme nor a uniform corporate design at the point of sale. This negative diversity also had an impact on production: the company had to produce around 100 different types of packaging for its socks alone. The redesign of the packaging was aimed at achieving a high, globally standardised recognition valueadidas has retained this style to this day in the form of black packaging for sports products and blue packaging for everyday products.

The adidas packaging design still used today was created by the Hamburg agency. (Image: Mutabor)

Shortly afterwards, in 2002 Mutabor the packaging design for the Hamburg tea house Samova, which was founded at the time and has retained this design to this day. The square tea caddies in which the product is packaged are characterised by a clear, uncluttered style with logo on the seal label and a subtle colour scheme that varies according to variety.

Sugar-sweet cooperation

However, the decisive partnership for the new packaging unit was with the German biscuit producer Bahlsen. "We developed a new corporate identity for the Bahlsen umbrella brand in 2017. Another task was to create a packaging vision for the Bahlsen product brand. Today's Packaging Unit emerged from this team", reports Molvali.

This first collaboration between the Hamburg design studio and the traditional biscuit producer in 2017 took place in the form of a so-called design print led by a Berlin-based marketing strategy consultancy. Mutabor recommended a brand redesign that would, among other things an updated corporate font and the modernisation of the characteristic Bahlsen "Tet" brand logo should include.

Another collaboration between Mutabor and Bahlsen took place in 2020, when the agency designed the special edition "Eye Candy" for the Hanover-based biscuit producers. Eight biscuits sweetened with fruit sugar instead of cane sugar were packed in a folding box, the shape of which paid homage to the very first Bahlsen packaging created at the turn of the century. These boxes were encased in eight graphics specially designed by contemporary illustrators, in which the artists explored the theme of sugar. Instead of being thrown away, this packaging could be reused as posters. Sugar for the tongue became sugar for the eye. Eye Candy.

"Packaging has to tell a story"

So now we have our own packaging unit. In addition to the guiding principle that society must also be considered when designing packaging, Carstens, the senior creative director, also sees storytelling as an elementary component here"Packaging has to tell a story." But how does packaging tell a story? "Every brand has a story to tell, and packaging provides a stage for storytelling. We create brand stories that, unlike pure product promises, are memorised more quickly and for longer. And the stories can be told beyond the packaging in all brand touchpoints." This is what happened, for example, in the conception of the Bahlsen design.

The Hamburg tea house Samova was one of the agency's first customers in 2002. The packaging design is still used today. (Image: Mutabor)

The scope of services offered by Mutabor Packaging GmbH is not limited to visual design. "Our focus is on branding, storytelling, sustainability and digitalisation in the context of packaging. We can take care of both the conception and the technical realisation - partly in-house, partly with partner companies," says Molvali. One focus of the new unit is on food packagingas in the previous Bahlsen cooperation. However, nothing is set in stone, says the Managing Director: "But we are not limiting ourselves. It is important that we can identify with the product."

Communicating sustainability through design

There is more to successful packaging than just an appealing print and a well-told story. When it comes to sustainability, the entire materiality of the packaging takes centre stage. The use of recycled materials, for example, can pose a challenge for the design, for example when it comes to the colouring of the product. Other materials such as bioplastics or paper in previously unfamiliar applications could also cause heads to spin when designing packaging. However, Molvali is confident about this: "In our new unit, we deal with all facets of technical development and legislation. Producers are involved in the projects right from the start, so that production processes can already be taken into account when the design is created."

The Managing Director's confidence also extends to consumers. "Consumers are often prepared to spend more on more sustainable products. As designers and consultants, we see it as our task to get our clients to make sustainable decisions and the buyers are properly informed about the packaging design", says Molvali.

In addition to sustainability as a sales argument, the new unit also sees another factor as elementary for the purchase decision: the so-called unboxing moment, i.e. the customer's direct interaction with the packaging. "The moment I receive a product, the unboxing moment begins. This can be anything from a simple pizza order to a luxury wristwatch. The trick is to design this moment in a brand-appropriate way so that the buyer is enthusiastic about the product and the product fulfils this promise," says designer Carstens, explaining the phenomenon. Packaging as the last physical touchpoint in the age of online retail.

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