The Jury President for Packaging Design and Founding Creative Partner at Here Design on the physical object in a digital world. Packaging is going through an evolution spurred on by contributing factors such as the climate emergency. Here, Emily Gosling, Editor-at-Large at Elephant Magazine got the inside account of the judging process.

“It was very nice to have human contact, albeit slightly distanced,” says Marlow, Founding Creative Partner at Here Design and Jury President for Packaging Design, on judging one of the few categories that were reviewed in person. “When you’re judging or looking at packaging it’s the experience of that object which means you need to be near it to fully understand it.”

Marlow speaks about how people have missed the tactility of objects and how buying online is fine but not the same as getting to handle the packaging and products in person. She also speaks of how brands could embrace the digital more in packaging design.

“Brands could embrace that idea of experience of the object and through digital and through other channels, this is quite an interesting time and I think things will change… You can’t just expect that things are going to end up on a shelf and have the same impact anymore,” Marlow explains, saying it’s now about everything from the writing and the packaging itself to the digital side.

Sustainability was lacking this year which came as a disappointing surprise to Marlow. “It’s the responsibility of designers, specifically packaging designers to think about how we can create change environmentally and it’s shocking really to think we have come this far and there is so little of that going on.”