Smart, beautiful and award-winning packaging from around the world

The Pentawards have been celebrating incredible design ideas for 10 years

Mengniu Hi!Milk by L3 Branding Experience in China. Gold Pentawards winner (Taschen)

From multi-coloured beer cans to illustrated coffee cups that reflect how the drinker is feeling, a new book is celebrating how clever design can turn mundane products into works of art.

The Package Design Book 4 is a collection of the best examples from the Pentawards for product design over the past two years, which is currently celebrating its tenth anniversary.

Over 400 packages – containing everything from fish to perfume – by designers from across 40 countries are featured in the book.

Winners include brightly coloured shoe-like sock packaging by Bic, an Orangina bottle that is peeled open like fruit, and Domino’s pizza boxes that look like the game behind the brand’s name.

To make the shortlist, the designers must create packaging that is innovative, has great attention to detail, and the potential to be iconic, the book's Julius Wiedemann told The Independent.

The book showcases the work of over 400 designers who have won a Pentaward (Taschen)

“Packaging is one of the most dynamic design fields because it needs to incorporate both a consumer product and the appeal of the visual into one thing," he argued.

He added that interesting packaging draws attention to the fact that design is an important part of our daily lives - even if it goes unnoticed most of the time.

"Coca-Cola still produces limited editions of its old bottles as collector’s items. It all contributes to the awareness that there is a designer, or a team of designers behind it."

Packaging can also capture the zeitgeist of when it is made, he added, giving context to social groups and new types of consumption and technological advances.

"It is one of the greatest windows for design."