Voyage of creative discovery for designers on visit to Iggesund

Thirteen designers from around the world are currently assimilating their experiences enjoyed during a voyage of creative discovery at Iggesund, Sweden, where they plunged into the Swedish countryside and learned about working with paperboard and, in particular, Iggesund Paperboard’s Invercote.

“The arrangements were good,” said Amy Beauregard, who works for xpedx in theUS. “The visit was informative and also gave us the opportunity to discuss both major and minor issues of design, materials and so on with experts and colleagues. We were also able to create, which was great fun.”

The designers paid for their travel expenses toSweden, but Iggesund took care of them during the week they attended the Iggesund Design Experience.

In a press note, Iggesund Paperboard said that selecting the program participants from all the designers who had applied was not easy, but that it was decided to choose them from a wide range of countries and types of design experience.

’The result was a good mix of both personalities and nationalities,’ the note said. ’Participants came fromLebanon, theUnited States,Finland,South Korea,Poland,Germany,DenmarkandBelgium.’

Commenting on the Design Experience, the Belgian freelance designer Joke Velghe, said it had been a fantastic week in a beautiful country. She had returned home with useful knowledge about Iggesund Paperboard’s products, and about Swedish forest management and sustainability programs.

“A week to remember,” said Max Kuehne, of the German company Paperlux. “The Iggesund Design Experience enabled me to compare interesting experiences with colleagues and I was also fascinated by the beautiful countryside and the friendly people.”

Paperboard is white and flat, and it is difficult to distinguish between the many different grades and brands; so a large part of the program was spent discussing which types of paperboard were suitable for which applications.

“The goal of the Design Experience event is for participants to return home filled with inspiration and new insights into how to create designs that stand out from the crowd,” said Iggesund Paperboard’s Elisabeth Östlin, who was one of the hosts during the week.

“We want to help designers raise their creativity to new heights in terms both of design and of making the right choices from a sustainability perspective,” added her colleague, Staffan Sjöberg. “Judging by the participants’ responses we succeeded fairly well.”