More Background On TheDieLineSummit.com

TheDieLineSummit.com was the online home of The Dieline Summit, a specialized international packaging-design conference held in Paris on November 16–17, 2014. Created through a collaboration between influential packaging-design platform The Dieline and EMBALLAGE, one of the major international exhibitions serving the packaging industry, the Summit brought prominent designers, branding specialists and creative leaders together to consider a deceptively simple question: What is the future of package design?

That question defined both the event and the website.

Rather than treating packaging merely as the container surrounding a product, The Dieline Summit approached it as a meeting point for design, branding, technology, consumer behavior, sustainability and business strategy. Its organizers wanted attendees to consider how designers could respond to larger changes in society and how packaging itself might evolve as technology, commerce and environmental expectations changed.

The result was an unusually forward-looking event for 2014. Discussions touched on subjects that would become increasingly important during the following decade, including biodegradable packaging, 3D printing, new digital technologies, changing consumer behavior, delivery systems and the reduction or transformation of traditional packaging.

TheDieLineSummit.com therefore represents more than an archived conference website. It captures a moment when the packaging-design community was actively reconsidering its role in business and society.

The Dieline and Andrew Gibbs

Understanding TheDieLineSummit.com requires understanding The Dieline itself.

The Dieline was established in 2007 by designer Andrew Gibbs. Gibbs was working as a packaging production artist and looking for a reliable source of daily package-design inspiration. At the time, there were numerous general graphic-design websites and blogs, but comparatively few resources devoted specifically to packaging.

Gibbs began collecting examples that interested him and created The Dieline as a dedicated package-design resource. The project rapidly grew beyond its origins as a personal blog.

The site's mission was to identify and promote exceptional packaging while providing designers, students and enthusiasts with a place to discover projects, follow industry trends and discuss the evolving discipline of package design. By the time of the Paris Summit, The Dieline had developed a substantial international following and expanded into conferences, publishing and awards.

Gibbs also created The Dieline Awards, an international competition recognizing consumer package design, and The Dieline Conference, which became associated with HOW Design Live.

This broader ecosystem is important because The Dieline Summit was not an isolated conference created by an unknown organizer. It was an extension of an established design-media brand that already had credibility within the professional packaging community.

The Paris event represented an effort to bring that influence into an explicitly international setting.

The Partnership With EMBALLAGE

The second major force behind the Summit was EMBALLAGE.

EMBALLAGE was an international trade exhibition covering a much broader spectrum of the packaging business than design alone. Its exhibits encompassed packaging and processing machinery, materials, containers, printing, labeling, coding, traceability, shipping equipment and other technologies involved in manufacturing and distributing packaged goods.

The 2014 exhibition ran November 17–20 at Paris Nord Villepinte.

Organizers promoted an enormous professional gathering: approximately 1,500 exhibitors from the packaging, processing, printing and handling sectors and an expected audience of roughly 100,000 professionals from around the world.

The Dieline and EMBALLAGE were therefore complementary organizations. The Dieline brought an audience centered on creative design, branding and visual culture, while EMBALLAGE represented the enormous commercial and technological infrastructure surrounding packaging.

Their relationship actually predated the 2014 Summit. Gibbs had developed a professional relationship with French packaging designer Fabrice Peltier, a prominent figure in French packaging design and president of the Institut National du Design Packaging (INDP). Earlier collaborations included bringing examples from The Dieline Awards to Paris and presenting Dieline Award winners in connection with EMBALLAGE.

The Summit expanded that relationship into a standalone European conference.

Contemporary trade coverage described the 2014 gathering as the first European edition of The Dieline Summit and an event specifically devoted to thinking about packaging's future.

Who Owned and Organized the Event?

TheDieLineSummit.com represented a joint event rather than a conventional independent company.

The creative identity and editorial concept came principally from The Dieline and its founder Andrew Gibbs, while the Summit was launched in partnership with the international EMBALLAGE exhibition and its organizer, Comexposium.

Comexposium was already a major international event organizer. Its portfolio included prominent French exhibitions such as SIAL, SIMA, Intermat, Foire de Paris and EMBALLAGE.

Fabrice Peltier also played an important role in bringing The Dieline concept into the French and European packaging community. Peltier was associated with INDP and had long advocated packaging design as a professional discipline connecting usability, industry, brands and consumers.

Contemporary reporting indicates that Comexposium effectively gave Gibbs significant freedom to develop the Summit's speaker program and creative direction.

This arrangement explains why the event felt different from a typical trade-show conference track. It combined the reach and infrastructure of a major exhibition organizer with the editorial viewpoint of an independent design publication.

The Mission: What Is the Future of Package Design?

The central mission of The Dieline Summit was unusually ambitious.

The conference did not ask attendees simply how to make better-looking boxes, bottles or labels. It asked designers to consider their responsibility within larger economic, cultural and environmental systems.

The premise was that the role of designers was changing.

Companies were increasingly recognizing that design could create business value rather than simply decorate products after strategic decisions had already been made. Packaging designers could therefore participate in decisions involving brand strategy, consumer experience, product systems and innovation.

The Summit described itself as part salon and part master class.

Its goal was to challenge conventional thinking and prepare designers for a future in which aesthetics alone would no longer be enough. Beautiful design might remain important, but designers would increasingly need to understand consumers, technology, culture, sustainability and business.

That philosophy gave the Summit a broader scope than a traditional technical packaging seminar.

The Speakers

The speaker lineup demonstrated the event's ambition.

American sociobiologist and author Rebecca Costa served as keynote speaker. Her presence was notable because she was not simply a packaging designer. Costa's work dealt with human behavior, complexity, technology and social change, making her a logical choice for a conference attempting to examine packaging through a wider cultural lens.

Alex Center, then a design leader at The Coca-Cola Company, brought the perspective of one of the world's most recognizable consumer brands. Center had played an important role in vitaminwater and subsequently worked within Coca-Cola's design organization.

Lori Gross and Tessa Westermeyer represented Landor Associates, one of the world's prominent branding consultancies. Their session examined how insights, creativity, innovation and storytelling could shape the future of packaging and brand experience.

Jonathan Ford, founding partner and chief creative officer of Pearlfisher, explored the relationship between culture, consumption and future product design.

Leland Maschmeyer, co-founder and executive creative director of COLLINS, examined growing complexity within packaging and argued for thinking beyond the package itself when solving design and organizational problems.

Jonathan Sands, chairman of Elmwood, brought the perspective of a design consultancy known for connecting design to measurable business effectiveness.

Michael Hendrix, a partner at IDEO, discussed embodied cognition and the way physical and emotional experiences influence people's understanding of objects and packaging.

Pantone also participated through a presentation on 2015 color trends.

Together, these speakers placed The Dieline Summit at the intersection of package design, branding, psychology, strategy, culture and innovation.

What Attendees Heard

Several presentations illustrate the Summit's wider philosophy.

Alex Center's "Design The Future" argued that designers were entering a period in which creativity, technology and business were converging. Design was increasingly expected to create value rather than merely add value to an existing product.

The Landor presentation explored fundamentals of successful design while emphasizing insight, innovation, constraints and storytelling.

Jonathan Ford's presentation took a much longer view. He invited attendees to consider how culture and civilization could reshape brands, products and packaging over decades. Among the provocative possibilities raised was the idea that packaging might become increasingly reduced, minimized or even functionally invisible.

Leland Maschmeyer addressed complexity and encouraged designers to expand beyond the narrow boundaries of an assignment rather than settle for incremental improvement.

Michael Hendrix's "Packaging Metaphors" examined embodied cognition — the connection between physical sensations, language and emotional understanding. This offered attendees a way to think about packaging not simply as a graphic surface but as a physical experience interpreted by the human mind.

Collectively, the program encouraged attendees to look well beyond typography, colors and structural forms.

Rebecca Costa and Predictions About Packaging Technology

Rebecca Costa's participation was particularly significant because she connected packaging with accelerating technological and societal change.

Contemporary coverage surrounding the Summit discussed emerging developments such as 3D printing, facial recognition, holographic technologies, drones, biodegradable packaging and miniaturization.

Some of these ideas sounded highly futuristic in 2014.

Yet the broader premise has aged well. E-commerce has transformed the requirements placed on packaging. Smartphone interaction with products has become commonplace. Sustainability has become a major corporate and regulatory issue. Brands increasingly discuss reusable, recyclable, compostable and reduced-material packaging. Connected packaging technologies can provide consumers with additional product information beyond what physically fits on a label.

The Summit's importance was therefore not that every prediction would unfold exactly as imagined. It was that organizers encouraged designers to recognize packaging as a dynamic system affected by technological and social change.

Location: Palais des Congrès de Paris

The main Summit was held at the Palais des Congrès de Paris at 2 Place de la Porte Maillot in Paris's 17th arrondissement.

The location placed attendees on the western side of central Paris, close to the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs-Élysées area and directly connected to one of the city's major conference and business districts.

The Hyatt Regency Paris Étoile, at 3 Place du Général Kœnig, served as the host hotel and reception location. Its proximity to the Palais des Congrès made it convenient for international attendees.

The larger EMBALLAGE exhibition took place separately at the Paris Nord Villepinte exhibition complex, approximately 25 kilometers north of central Paris. The venue is conveniently positioned for Charles de Gaulle Airport and accessible from central Paris by RER rail service.

Summit registration included transportation to the exhibition, allowing participants to move from the design-focused conference in central Paris into the much larger industrial packaging exhibition.

Schedule and Conference Experience

The event opened Sunday evening, November 16, with registration, introductory remarks and Rebecca Costa's keynote, followed by a reception.

The principal conference program occurred Monday, November 17.

Morning sessions included Alex Center, Lori Gross and Tessa Westermeyer, and Jonathan Ford. A networking lunch separated the morning and afternoon programs.

Afternoon speakers included Leland Maschmeyer, Jonathan Sands and Michael Hendrix, followed by Pantone's color-trend presentation and a concluding panel discussion moderated by Rebecca Costa.

The experience then extended into EMBALLAGE itself.

On November 18, Summit participants could travel to Paris Nord Villepinte, where additional programming connected the conference to the international exhibition. This included interviews and presentations associated with EMBALLAGE TV.

The combination was important. Attendees could spend one day discussing conceptual questions about design's future and then encounter materials, technologies, machinery and commercial packaging systems at one of the industry's major exhibitions.

The Dieline Awards 2014 Exhibition

Another important connection was the exhibition of winners from the fifth annual Dieline Awards.

The 2014 competition recognized 42 winning projects across 13 categories. The awards had been announced earlier that year at HOW Design Live before an audience of more than 1,000 creative professionals.

Projects were evaluated on criteria including creativity, marketability and innovation.

The Best of Show award went to Harmonian, designed by Mousegraphics. An Editor's Choice honor went to the packaging for Marc Jacobs Cosmetics, designed by Established. The Sustainable Packaging Award recognized work involving Jawbone ERA and UP24 packaging by fuseproject and Jawbone.

Displaying the award winners at EMBALLAGE allowed European packaging professionals to examine examples of internationally recognized consumer packaging firsthand.

It also reinforced the Summit's central message: packaging should be evaluated not simply for appearance, but for innovation, consumer appeal, functionality and broader impact.

Attendance and International Reach

The Summit was intentionally specialized rather than enormous.

Post-event reporting stated that approximately 150 professionals attended, with about 75 percent coming from outside France and 26 nationalities represented.

Participants reportedly came from countries including the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Spain, Russia, Japan, Taiwan, Brazil, Canada, South Africa, Finland, Greece, Ireland, Lithuania, Turkey and others.

That international makeup is especially noteworthy when contrasted with the event's modest size.

The Dieline Summit was not trying to duplicate the 100,000-person scale of EMBALLAGE. Instead, it created a concentrated gathering of designers, agencies and brand professionals who could discuss strategic questions in a comparatively intimate environment.

The event's popularity is therefore better measured by the caliber and geographic diversity of its participants than by raw attendance numbers.

Audience

The primary audience for TheDieLineSummit.com consisted of packaging designers, branding professionals, creative directors, consumer-product companies, marketing professionals, design agencies and students or emerging designers interested in packaging.

However, the subject matter extended beyond practicing designers.

Brand strategists could learn how packaging contributes to consumer perception. Corporate executives could explore design as a source of business value. Manufacturers and packaging suppliers could gain insight into the creative forces shaping future demand. Marketers could better understand the physical package as a communications medium.

For students and younger designers, the Summit offered exposure to internationally recognized professionals and ideas extending well beyond traditional classroom discussions about form, color and typography.

Registration and What Attendees Received

The event was positioned as a premium professional conference.

Early registration was priced at €980 including tax, with the full rate rising to €1,400 after the early-booking deadline.

The fee included scheduled Summit sessions, the networking reception, entry to the EMBALLAGE international exhibition, transportation between Paris and the exhibition, coffee breaks and a networking lunch.

Sessions were made accessible in both English and French, an important feature for an international European conference.

Special arrangements were also offered for accommodation at the Hyatt Regency Paris Étoile and for certain flights through Air France or KLM.

These details demonstrate that the Summit was structured for an international professional audience rather than casual public attendance.

Partners and the Broader Design Community

The ecosystem surrounding the event extended beyond The Dieline and EMBALLAGE.

Organizations associated with the Summit included the Institut National du Design Packaging and the European Packaging Design Association, both of which reflected its connection to the professional design community.

Media and design organizations also helped place the event within a wider network of packaging and industrial-design discourse.

This network mattered because packaging design is inherently interdisciplinary. A successful package can involve graphic designers, industrial designers, engineers, materials specialists, manufacturers, brand strategists, marketers and retailers.

The Summit's partners and its connection with EMBALLAGE reflected that reality.

Press and Media Coverage

The Dieline promoted the Summit extensively through its own editorial platform, publishing announcements, interviews and question-and-answer features with speakers in the months preceding the event.

Independent design and packaging publications also covered it.

Premium Beauty News described the gathering as an event within the larger EMBALLAGE event and highlighted its focus on packaging's future. Packaging-industry publications publicized the Summit before it occurred and subsequently reported on its international attendance and speaker lineup.

French marketing publication Stratégies covered the event immediately afterward and discussed ideas emerging from it with Fabrice Peltier, including smartphone-readable packaging, drone delivery, 3D printing, bio-packaging and holographic technology.

This coverage shows that the Summit generated interest outside The Dieline's own audience and was treated as a serious professional event rather than merely a promotional extension of a website.

Reviews and Reception

Traditional consumer-style reviews of The Dieline Summit are relatively scarce, which is not surprising for a specialized two-day professional event held in 2014.

Industry reporting after the conference was nevertheless positive.

Post-event material characterized the first European edition as a success and emphasized its 150 attendees, high percentage of international participants and representation from 26 countries.

The conference also appears to have succeeded in attracting exactly the audience its organizers sought: design agencies, brand professionals and packaging specialists interested in discussing the future rather than merely viewing new products.

The diversity of speakers and attendees gave the event a perspective extending beyond any single country or design discipline.

Cultural and Social Significance

The most enduring aspect of TheDieLineSummit.com is the way it documents a change in how packaging designers saw themselves.

Historically, packaging could be regarded as a downstream activity: a product was developed, and designers were asked to create an attractive container and label that would help sell it.

The Summit promoted a more expansive model.

Designers were being encouraged to participate in strategic decisions, understand consumer behavior, anticipate technological changes and consider environmental consequences. Packaging was presented as part of a larger product and brand system.

This shift has become increasingly important.

Consumers now encounter products both physically and digitally. E-commerce has changed distribution. Environmental concerns have intensified scrutiny of unnecessary materials and single-use plastics. Brands are expected to think about the entire life cycle of a package rather than simply how it looks on a retail shelf.

Seen from this perspective, the 2014 Summit captured packaging design at an important transitional moment.

What TheDieLineSummit.com Is Known For Today

Today, TheDieLineSummit.com is best understood as a historical record of a specific chapter in the development of The Dieline and the international packaging-design community.

Its importance comes from the convergence of several elements: The Dieline's growing influence, the scale of EMBALLAGE, Andrew Gibbs and Fabrice Peltier's international collaboration, a strong speaker roster, the accompanying Dieline Awards exhibition and an unusually forward-looking conference theme.

The website documented the mission, speakers, program, destination, registration information and partners involved in the event.

More importantly, it preserved the questions the packaging community was asking in 2014.

What happens when design becomes part of corporate strategy? How should designers respond to technology? How will consumer behavior reshape products? Can packaging become less wasteful? Could physical packaging eventually become dramatically reduced? What responsibility do designers have for the systems they help create?

Those questions remain relevant.

The Legacy of the Dieline Summit

The 2014 Paris Summit was part of The Dieline's broader evolution from a design blog into an influential international platform encompassing editorial coverage, awards, conferences and industry advocacy.

The event also demonstrated the value of bringing creative designers together with the much larger manufacturing and commercial packaging world represented by EMBALLAGE.

Its 150 attendees were tiny in number compared with the tens of thousands associated with the surrounding exhibition, but that was arguably part of the Summit's identity. It was a focused forum in which influential designers and strategists could think beyond immediate production requirements and ask what their profession might become.

In retrospect, many of the pressures identified around that time — sustainability, technological disruption, changing distribution models, consumer expectations and the expanding strategic role of design — have only intensified.

That gives TheDieLineSummit.com continuing historical value.

It documents a conference created around a question rather than a product: What is the future of package design?

More than a decade later, the answer continues to evolve.