What makes packaging successful today? At Metsä Board’s new Milan Design Studio, Lorenzo Luzi, Designer, Graphical Packaging and Giovanni Pagani, Designer, Structural Packaging, share their perspectives on how close collaboration with customers can shape effective packaging solutions.
Q: What inspired you to join Metsä Board and the Milan Design Studio?
Giovanni Pagani: I was attracted by the possibility to work in a studio where innovation is supported by practical, accessible prototyping tools. The Milan Design Studio offers the chance to test ideas quickly, moving from concept to mock-up with a very hands-on approach. Having access to advanced tools for structural development, material testing, digital visualization, and rapid prototyping makes the design process more accurate and concrete.
Lorenzo Luzi: What inspired me most was the opportunity to use design to contribute to a more sustainable future. Packaging has a direct impact on how products are perceived, used, and valued, and it can also play an important role in reducing environmental impact. Metsä Board is strongly committed to this direction, and the Milan Design Studio provides a creative and collaborative environment where ideas can be developed closely with customers and transformed into effective packaging concepts.
Q: What do you enjoy most when working with customers?
G: Learning from the technical challenges that each converter brings into the production process. Every converter works with different machinery, tolerances, production speeds, finishing options, and operational constraints. I find this extremely stimulating because it allows me to expand my technical knowledge project by project.
L: What I enjoy most is the dialogue. Every customer brings a different story, a different product, and a different challenge. I enjoy listening carefully, understanding what they want to achieve, and translating that vision into something tangible. The most rewarding moment is seeing an idea become a real packaging solution that works for the brand, for the consumer, and for the material itself.
Q: What makes packaging successful in your opinion?
G: Its ability to perform consistently through the entire product lifecycle. Successful packaging must be durable, reliable, and correctly specified for its intended use. A strong visual identity is important, but it is not enough if the material does not meet the required technical performance. When the material specifications are carefully selected and matched with the structural design, packaging can protect the product efficiently while maintaining quality, functionality, and brand perception.
L: For me, successful packaging is something that people understand, appreciate, and remember. It needs to protect the product and communicate clearly, but it should also feel considered in every detail. When design, functionality, and sustainability work together, packaging can go beyond its basic purpose and become something people want to keep, reuse, or interact with. That ability to create a lasting connection is what makes packaging truly successful.
Q: How can early collaboration between brand owners and packaging designers create better outcomes?
G: It allows technical decisions to be integrated before the project becomes too rigid. When designers, brand owners, converters, and technical teams collaborate from the beginning, it becomes possible to evaluate material selection, structural requirements, production constraints, filling-line compatibility, logistics, and end-of-life considerations at the same time. This reduces the risk of late-stage redesigns and helps avoid problems related to cutting, creasing, gluing, folding, stacking, transport, or machine performance. Early collaboration also makes prototyping and testing more efficient, because each design choice can be assessed against real production parameters. The final result is a packaging solution that is stronger, more coherent, and technically reliable from concept to industrialization.
L: Early collaboration makes the entire process stronger. When brand owners and designers work together from the beginning, they can align on objectives, explore technical opportunities and limitations, and make better decisions before the project progresses too far. This leads to packaging that is more coherent, efficient, and creative, because design is not added at the end of the process but becomes part of the strategy from the start.
