Industrial Design Students Participate in Studio with Pratt Industries

This fall, Associate Professor Shu-Wen Tzeng’s third year industrial design students participated in a sponsored studio with Pratt Industries, one of the nation’s largest corrugated packaging companies. Based in Georgia, Pratt Industries supplies its customers with sustainable and environmentally-friendly packaging.

Tzeng challenged her students to work on creative solutions for paper-based restaurant take-out packaging items like food containers and caddies. The students completed industry-relevant global market research to generate new design concepts. The work resulted in proposals for 15 branded product lines, each with three packaging designs that provide creative solutions for restaurant take-out items while communicating the core message and value of the product lines.

During different stages of project development, students communicated via Zoom with a number of Pratt Industries representatives, including designers, engineers, project managers and quality control specialists. Jeff Tuttle, General Manager of Visual Merchandising at the company, assisted students with project planning. In mid-November, the students presented the final designs to the Pratt Industries team, and their work was well received. “Professor Tzeng did an amazing job leading her students and facilitating,” Tuttle said. “I feel we had a great semester. A lot of great ideas to digest, and time will tell where we end up taking them.”