Adam Ryan is head of the Pentawards, the awards scheme that recognises excellence in packaging design. Adam studied Graphic Design at London College of Printing and has since worked as a fashion designer, creative consultant and creative director for a range of global brands. After joining the Pentawards in 2017 as a project manager, he was promoted to his current position in 2019.
To find out more about Adam's role, including what it's like to head up the Pentawards, what makes great packaging design and how his background in fashion influences his work today, I caught up with him recently as part of our Day in the Life page.
Tell me about a typical day in your role
I work in a very fast paced, creative and dynamic environment. I’m involved in overseeing sales, marketing, operations and developing our company mission and purpose, with a focus on the strategic direction of the company. There isn’t really a typical day at Pentawards, but you’ll find me collaborating with the team on upcoming projects including upcoming events - both organising and attending, new product launches and initiatives that give back to our community. I’m also networking a lot with the design community, and make sure to stay on top of the latest trends in the packaging design world.
What was your early career like?
I have a lot of experience across various different industries including fashion, design, branding, marketing and events. This first started when studying Graphic Design at London College of Printing before pursuing a career as a fashion designer and creative consultant for several international brands including Westfields, Diesel, Kurt Geiger, and Lexus.
My first ever professional job was for BAFTA, and in 2010, I founded Essex Fashion Week with my twin brother Simon. This grew to be one of the biggest fashion weeks in the UK and was featured in the TV series The Only Way is Essex.
I was then made Head of Brand at luxury jewellery company Tresor Paris where I worked for three years. In 2016, I worked as Creative Director for global YouTube stars the F2 Freestylers, who partner with Adidas.
Full circle to Pentawards! Where I joined in February of 2017 as project manager and was then promoted to head of Pentawards in 2019.
How did you go from being a project manager to head of the Pentawards?
I started in Feb 2017, but prior to this Easyfairs owned Pentawards and was acquired in October 2016. I worked with the founders for the first two years to attend to the whole business and its heritage was my focus. When the founders left after two years of being part of the acquisition I was full of ideas of how to take the Pentawards to the next level.
I focused on retaining the heritage of the business but bringing it into the 21st century. I had a vision to rebrand, create a diverse jury line up which included brands, introduce social media as a core tenant of the Pentawards image, and an overarching goal to make Pentawards more than just an awards body. I knew it had potential to be what it is today; a platform to connect designers 365 days of the year through festivals, trend reports and more.
After working hard on all that, I’ve built a team combined with fantastic business growth, and was subsequently promoted to head of Pentawards.
What makes the Pentawards special?
The community of people makes it what it is. The jury members are so committed and love the industry. It's not only an awards body but also a platform for designers, agencies and brands to gain visibility, network and showcase their talents on an international stage.
It means so much to win one of our awards, which is really special. We celebrate creative excellence in packaging design, which is a niche but exciting field.
What makes packaging design standout? What are you looking for in Pentawards entries?
We don’t judge the work but have an independent jury of experts, with all entries judged anonymously. However, we do have judging criteria, which consists of four main elements for the majority of our categories: Quality of Design, Brand Expression, Creativity and Innovation, and Emotional Connection.
We always ask the jury, 'would you invest in this'? This always drives great outcomes.
I think there are a couple of ways for designs to stand out. It’s great to see when businesses and brands manage to balance and focus on sustainability (perhaps reusing their own waste), applying ecommerce in an immersive way, finding ingenious ways to make packaging more accessible, and having a real purpose and understanding of the consumer mindset. In my opinion, when designers integrate these insights into the packaging of their products, they will be the ones that succeed in the future.
A great example of this is from Auge Design – Pedon C'è di Buono in Italia.
Tell me about a tricky work-related challenge and how you approached it
Representing diversity in an industry which could be more diverse. I worked with John Glasgow, our Co President, who was very honest about what we needed to do. We made sure to listen with open arms to make sure we took on board all his points to improve it as much as possible.
We’ve made our recruitment process more flexible, and we now have more women than men employed. Outside of this, we wanted to make sure that alongside our events we focus on more initiatives that give back to our community. Our collaboration with Vital Hardware, providing talented young people from underprivileged backgrounds hardware and software tools to help make creative careers more accessible, is a great example of this.
Which project from your career are you most proud of and why?
Launching a diamond store with David Hasselhoff opening it as a favour – this was a lot of fun!
Launching the Pentawards Festival is also something I’m really proud of, this was an opportunity for our community to network, collaborate, attend workshops, talks and performances and connect with some brilliant brands. We also had some really interesting speakers including experts from Coca-Cola, Walt Disney and Patagonia alongside business voices such as Steven Bartlett.
How does your background in fashion influence your work today?
Before working at Pentawards I had minimal experience of packaging. I had worked for a few brands which needed packaging and it played an important role during the design phase.
Both industries place a strong emphasis on aesthetics, storytelling, creativity and innovation. My experience in fashion helped me to understand the industry quickly; the importance of visual appeal, brand identity and consumer engagement permeate through both packaging design and fashion.
For the gala last year, we did something very different where we had a catwalk for the winners to walk down and have their moment. Maybe this was heavily influenced by my fashion experience.
Tell me about the Package Design Book series
Published by Taschen, The Packaging Design Book is the ultimate celebration of packaging design, featuring over 600 winning works from the world’s leading packaging design competition. It’s now in its 7th edition and all books have sold out apart from the two latest books:
What challenges do packaging designers face today?
When we talk about challenges I always see these as real opportunities. However, there are so many elements which packaging designers need to take into consideration today when creating packaging. If we go back 10 – 15 years ago the pressure was to make the pack aesthetically pleasing, now there are so many more things to consider like sustainability, accessible design, inclusivity, diversity and authenticity.
Packaging is now one of the most powerful brand-owned media-asset companies can use to engage with consumers, and packaging designers are having to adapt to changing consumer preferences.
What’s your dream project/dream client?
I would have loved to have worked with Virgil Abloh to design our trophies! Philippe Starck is also on my list of someone we would love to work with.
How inclusive is the design industry in 2024?
In my opinion, Microsoft are the industry leaders on this topic. And are willing to share all of their insights. Kevin Marshall is one of our jury members and is amazing, we really value his input.
Are there some good examples of sustainable design?
Pentawards is committed to running our events in an environmentally and socially responsible manner. Four years ago, we introduced a new small sustainable design subcategory, year on year entries have doubled and this year tripled! We have now introduced a full category, a dedicated sustainable jury and partnered with some companies and people that are ahead of the game in relation to sustainable design.
Sustainability has also become a key criteria across our entire judging, with scores for creativity and innovation considered for trends currently driving the industry, with sustainability of course being one of the leading ones (alongside inclusive design and smart technology).
For the Sustainability category specifically, judges are looking for evidence of optimisation in the environmental performance of the packs, through pack structure, materials used and production methods.
With greenwashing on the rise, we make sure we vet any questions around sustainability through an expert lens – Suzy Shelley acted as a sounding board last year to ensure anything considered greenwashing could be spotted early on.
What career advice would you give your younger self?
Don’t be scared to change industries, you’re not an imposter, embrace feedback and failure will hurt but it’s the best training you are going to have.
What's next for the Pentawards?
I can’t share too much news, but the Pentawards Festival will be going abroad next year… Watch this space!
Find out more about the Pentawards.
