Sleever International covers the International Packaging Exhibition in Paris with 360° wrapping

Sleever International showed its know-how and skills through its creations exhibited at the 40th edition of the International Packaging Exhibition. The 2012 International Biennale for professionals in the packaging industry took place at Paris-Villepinte from 19 to 22 November. Sleever was associated with French designer Fabrice Peltier for two important items celebrating the exhibition's 40th anniversary: a superb birthday cake, and the design of the trophies for the Packaging Oscars awarded by Emballages Magazine [Packaging Magazine]. Fabrice Peltier is a renowned designer-graphist, an "agitator of ideas", and founder of the Designpack Gallery. To realise these two projects Sleever gave him carte blanche and access to the numerous technologies and creative opportunities offered by the sleeve. He explains «The sleeve is above all a formidable vehicle for design. It offers an infinite number of creative possibilities, much more than the product materials themselves could offer. It's so simple to have an idea then make it a reality using the sleeve ! That's why it's a technology I use regularly for my own projects».

A trophy in Gold
This year, Emballages Magazine has awarded the Packaging Oscars in 4 categories with 17 trophies, created by Fabrice Peltier. For the occasion the famous designer used a steel tube, which, through the magic of the sleeve, became a sculpture in gold. The wooden base had a red plastic button enclosing the signature of its creator as a certificate of authenticity. The Oscar Diploma was concealed inside the tube. But how was a basic item of packaging transformed into such a valuable and prestigious Trophy? «Firstly, the advantage of using a sleeve is that it dresses and decorates the form through a full 360°.  Also, the sleeve has this ability and capacity to be used either as an opaque material, or for its transparency. In this case the metallic texture of the container appears as it is, due to the sleeve's transparent nature». Fabrice Peltier played with these qualities to create a sculpture using the graphic design of old  metal printing types, which gives the impression that the metallic container is an engraved cylinder of solid gold. «Only a sleeve lets you obtain this type of effect, it entirely covers the supporting object, and you don't really see it’s there» he explains. In fact in this instance it was so discrete that many people didn't even notice a sleeve had been used for the trophy!!
 
A well packaged birthday cake
To celebrate this 40th edition of the International Packaging Exhibition, Fabrice Peltier imagined an enormous «composite» multi-tiered birthday cake, made from all the different forms and materials used in everyday packaging: he even added a cream topping to make it more realistic. On a 120 cm diameter sponge base, made from recycled wooden pallets, he built the different tiers using aerosol cans, glass jam jars, shampoo bottles, milk bottles, beverage cartons, drink cans...
Each layer was covered with a thermo-shrinked sleeve, which not only kept all the juxtaposed packaging in place, but also made them into a real work of art as they decorated the cake with garlands of pink cream and real patisserie «topping» motifs.
The neon tube which illuminated the heart of the cake emerged from the pyramid like a candle drawing the number 40 with its flame. For Fabrice Peltier, the sleeve was the solution, «the fundamental ingredient of my recipe: it allowed me to decorate mundane packaging items and make a real birthday cake». He added, «For me as a designer, the sleeve is a way of creating special editions, one-offs, letting my imagination follow its course in perfect freedom and liberty, without any constraints. The Sleeve is a 360° packaging, in the round ».