Golden A' Design Award Winner 2022
PepsiCo Design and Innovation's New Year 2022 LTO Beverage Packaging emerges from contemporary commercial design practice as an exemplary fusion of festive celebration and brand sophistication, demonstrating how limited-time offerings can elevate everyday consumer products into objects of cultural resonance and visual delight. The design team appears to have drawn inspiration from the luminous vocabulary of urban nightlife signage and digital display aesthetics, translating the ephemeral glow of neon into permanent printed graphics that capture the electric anticipation of year-end festivities and gift-giving traditions. Compositionally, the packaging achieves remarkable density of visual information without sacrificing legibility or brand prominence, as the central circular brand element maintains its iconic recognition while surrounded by a constellation of meticulously rendered celebratory symbols. The chromatic strategy demonstrates sophisticated understanding of color psychology, with the deep blues evoking twilight celebration and the magenta accents suggesting warmth, joy, and festive energy appropriate to the seasonal occasion. Technical execution reveals precision in the integration of outline illustration style with dimensional container form, where flat graphic elements wrap convincingly around cylindrical surfaces while maintaining visual coherence. The presentation context, with its geometric neon wireframe suggesting an unwrapped gift, extends the packaging narrative into environmental storytelling, positioning the product as both gift and celebration itself. One might observe how this approach to seasonal packaging transcends mere decoration to become participatory cultural artifact, inviting consumers to engage with the ritual dimensions of celebration through everyday consumption. What personal memories of celebration and connection might such visual vocabularies evoke in those who encounter them?
These cans were created with consumer engagement in mind, as well as to activate the brand beyond packaging. Complete with interactive functional features, consumers are encouraged to use their smartphone to scan QR codes on the cans that lead to promotions, including a chance to win limited edition hoodies and t-shirts that glow.