Open Strategy and Design, a Mumbai-based independent brand design consultancy, has won the prestigious Dieline Packaging Awards 2021 – a global award platform that recognises the best in the packaging design from across the world. Its work for Unsaid Library, a gifting brand based in Europe, secured third place in the luxury packaging category.

Unsaid Library is a jewellery gifting brand from Walking Tree, a Mumbai-based jewellery design studio. Open Strategy and Design was assigned the task of designing the brand and its experience, with packaging playing a key role.

“It had to be designed as the site of magic. The pack had to make the gift feel personal, not something bought off-the-shelf,” an Open press note shared with PrintWeek stated.

Commenting on the win, Ashutosh Karkhanis, creative head, Open Strategy and Design said: “Our gifts are beautiful time-travel machines. With the packaging we wanted to design the moment of reveal in a manner that emotionally moved the receiver.

“The unboxing was designed as an experience for the gift to come alive layer by layer, with an emotionally-charged personal message leading the way. This win at the Dieline award is thrilling, even more so because we won for creating a deep experience in a category that tends to obsess with craft.”

Ankit Mehta, CEO, Walking Tree said, “We imagined Unsaid as a chronicler of human relationships, bound by the art of gifting. We have worked closely with Open to develop the brand over the last couple of years, and to see the work find both commercial and critical global acclaim is very gratifying.”

Awards were judged across five categories – creativity, marketability, innovation, execution, and on-pack branding, ultimately going through two rounds of rigorous critique and appraisal.

Founded in the year 2007, the Dieline Awards felicitate the best consumer product packaging and design globally, thereby raising awareness around the enormous value of packaging design and branding. In 2021, Dieline Awards received nearly 1,600 entries, the maximum number of entries ever received. The jurors included the who’s who from the global design world, including luminaries such as Design Matters’ host Debbie Millman, Design Army co-founder and CCO Pum Lefebure, A Plastic Planet’s Sian Sutherland, among others. 

Founded in 2011, Open offers services across strategy and innovation, brand design and content. It also incubates and launches new brands as part of Open Brand Capital. Open claimed that for the last three years, it has been the most awarded design agency in India.