Philosophy on packaging and design

My name is Wouter Wigman, a designer from The Netherlands. I've been studying Industrial Design Engineering which was both technical as theoretical. Rigth after that I applied at the Royal College of Arts in The Hague, for Interior Architecture and Furniture Design which was more experimental and aesthetic.

This combination has very powerful for exploring on innovative and creative design sollutions. My latest projects are chairs, that are made out of recycled wood from fruit packaging boxes and wallets from recycled coffee bags

Furniture Collection From Packaging Wood

Recycling and sustainability have my greatest attention. As a designer you choose your materials. Some are rare and very expensive, some are considered worthless and discarded When I design I don't like to start from scratch. Without restrictions you get a boring design. So I look at things that draw my attention. Why is that thing, looking like that, working like that, or used like that?


So for packaging there is an interesting situation. It's designed to protect and attract attention to what's inside. That makes packaging quite a clever thing, but packaging has only a temporary function. These days we produce a lot of garbage, it would be great to explore ways to reuse or recycle packaging materials better.

My ambition is to change the way of looking at packaging. A packaging is not only functional, if you could use it again, it would stimulate creativity.