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This Bay Area Packaging Designer Paired Silicon Valley Vibes with a Zero-Waste Ethos

by Yi Mao for ArtCenter College of Design

By Core77 Design Awards - November 14, 2019

Boudin won a Student Runner Up Visual Communication Award in the 2019 Core77 Design Awards.

Boudin, a bakery and restaurant chain based in San Francisco, is famous for its sourdough bread and its "Bowl of Soup," which is a hollowed out sourdough "bowl" with clam chowder in it. It's an inspiringly self-contained, fully edible culinary design. It only makes sense, then, for the brand to follow in its own zero-waste footsteps with the rest of its food packaging.

A result of ArtCenter College's first-ever plastic-free packaging course, designer Yi Mao proposed a rebranding of Boudin's packaging and visual identity that shifted the company toward sustainability and, as Mao deemed it, "the 21st century vibe."

Boudin SF new to-go packaging container -

Core packaging containers for sourdough bread and clam chowder -

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Mao's presentation included physical food packaging (the models dictated the size, dimensions, and functionality of real paper pulp containers); reusable cotton carrier bags; and environmentally friendly wrapping papers, container tags, to-go menus, and business cards.

To produce the models, Mao employed a comprehensive range of compostable biomaterials: algae, food waste, grass, mushrooms, plant cellulose and wood pulp.

To-go packaging tag -

New branding identity -

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The sustainability aspect was only one of the guiding ethos for the project; the other was modernization. "Cleaner typography and more illustrative graphic elements" as parts of a comprehensive visual system would transform Boudin 'into a brand with a strong contemporary style'," says Mao of the proposal. This restyling incorporated San Francisco's history, as well as the bakery's— Boudin has been a California institution since 1849.

Boudin SF food delivery packaging family -

Deeming the concept "Boudin Yuccies" (which stands for Young Urban Creatives), Mao's pairing of heritage with the crucial element of ecological-mindedness aims to bring the brand's stature as an iconic San Francisco tourist attraction into a new era, one that fuses with Silicon Valley's philosophical and aesthetic direction.

Sounds like a fully baked concept to us.

Environmental design elements -

Learn more about the plastic-free packaging project for Boudin on our Core77 Design Awards site of 2019 honorees

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This Bay Area Packaging Designer Paired Silicon Valley Vibes with a Zero-Waste Ethos

mike kim

4 months ago

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great concept. One big issue is with it's stack-ability, which looks like it doesn't. This effects production capabilities with tooling, shipping issue (palletization), and storage issue in the actual restaurants. Real-world application is a key consideration that is not really taught in schools unfortunately.

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Core77 Design Awards

Recognizing excellence in all areas of design enterprise, the Core77 Design Awards celebrates the richness of the design profession and its practitioners.