Packaging design team wins 1st in national contest

It took hard work, many iterations of design, and some “underdog” good fortune, and now Pennsylvania College of Art & Design has a national champion team. 

This fall, Logan Byer ’25, Graphic Design, Cam Maier ’26, Animation & Game Art, and 2024 alumni Bahir Harris and Kendall Harris-Burton, both Graphic Design majors, placed at the top of the Paperboard Packaging Council’s nationwide design contest. Their victory, in Atlanta, came against multiple teams from much larger colleges and universities. Led by Graphic Design Adjunct Tom Newmaster, the team brought their project — sustainable paperboard packaging for potatoes — to compete against teams from Rochester Institute of Technology and California State Polytechnic University.

“Overall,” says Harris-Burton, “this full experience … has inspired us all… We emerged through tough competition.”

Harris agreed, saying he encourages students to explore packaging design, “an interesting concept within the design world.

“It has led me to being interested in employment within the packaging world,” Harris added. The experience “has led me down a great path for my future self.”

“There’s so much I learned about the (design) process, even with the (quick) turnaround time,” Maier said. “Being able to have access to the materials from PCA&D and FORCEpkg (Newmaster’s firm) really gave me insight on industry-level printing. The conference sparked my interest in further graphic design, despite it not being my major. I hope I can find a happy medium, tying in Graphic Design and Animation.”

The students will split $5,500 in first-prize money, while the College will receive $5,000. 

The work

The assignment for this contest was relatively straightforward: To create paperboard packaging for produce, a commodity that often is sold in plastic. Working with potatoes, the team went through many variations and refinements before settling on its final product: a hexagonal container that is easily stackable, simple to grip with either one or two hands, sturdy enough to carry a heavy load, ventilated to keep the contents from rotting, all while leaving enough space for branding. And each teammate took a defined role within the overall project to bring it to completion. 

Maier, who was just a sophomore when work on the project began, delegated tasks and worked to ensure deadlines were met. In addition, they wrote and directed the video that outlines the team’s process. “I’m especially proud of that,” Maier said. “The judges complimented us on our video… I’m excited to have a part in that.”

Harris and Harris-Burton, meanwhile, juggled competition requirements with their own senior thesis work. Harris, for instance, worked on the graphic design elements of the project and contributed to the overall marketing plan as well.

And, through it all, they learned to trust not only themselves, but their team members as well. 

“It wasn’t just a grade, it was a competition that could have us win real, actual money from, and be a part of, a great council meeting that could network us into the business,” Harris said. “So I trusted Logan with his work on the structural design… I trusted his thought process to problem-solve any hiccups and mishaps. I trusted Cam with telling us what was needed every week and so forth. Collaborating and having several voices giving input and also being able to trust your classmates to go beyond the work of  ‘schoolwork’ really was the most challenging part of this project,” Harris said. 

Yet it all worked to inspire them together. 

“Thanks to us and Tom (Newmaster) for outstanding talent, hard work, and team leadership,” Harris-Burton said, “Atlanta was a wonderful experience.”

“I really liked how this design challenge was set up … the project outline, the submission requirements, and the top-caliber judges,” Newmaster observed. “The team obviously performed well and better than expected. It was our first time and we didn’t know what to expect, so maybe that helped us.

“For me, it was great to watch the students interact at the event and how much they changed and evolved over those three days. It was dramatic. I’m very proud of what they accomplished and it was a bit of validation for me and what I try and do in class. I guess this proves we are all doing something right at PCA&D.”

You can watch a Fox43 television news story about the team being tapped as finalists in the competition here.