O-I partners with RMIT in glass cider bottle design

Responding to cider’s recent growth in popularity among Australian consumers, leading glass packaging manufacturer Owens-Illinois (OI) developed a design brief for a 500 mL glass cider bottle.

The brief was presented to first-year industrial design students at Melbourne’s RMIT University. It included a number of guidelines such as the need to produce a bottle suitable for high-speed production and filling lines, and an area for applying a label and branding and mandatory information.

Students were provided with an overview of the glass manufacturing process and spent one day sketching their concepts followed by 3D modelling and rendering.

“I was blown away by the intricacies of the design concepts and the level of creativity and skill demonstrated by all students,” said O-I Australia’s Senior Product Designer, Julian Ditchburn.

“The collaboration with RMIT also provided us with a unique insight into emerging design techniques and technologies as well as an extremely impressive talent pool.”

O-I Australia employees from the company’s design and sales and marketing departments were invited to review more than 60 student concepts. The designs were assessed on a range of criteria including their level of creativity and adaptability to glass manufacturing processes.

One of the outstanding designs titled ‘Cider Bottle’, by student Dustin Bailey, was commended for its simple yet contemporary design featuring a large surface area for labelling.

“I’ve always viewed glass as a beautiful material which gives products a premium look and feel,” said Dustin.