World success for the 4th Pentawards Ceremony in Shanghai 

(excerpt from the official media release)

They came in large numbers from 5 continents and more than 20 countries to receive their Pentawards.  The VIP business lounge of the Belgo-European pavilion of Shanghai Expo 2010 was full when the official Pentaward ceremony 2010 commenced on 30 September.
Yuan Zonglei, Design Manager at Jahwa Shanghai and Gérard Caron, president of the Pentaward panel of judges declared the ceremony officially open at 6:30 PM.

More than 60 prizes, bronze, silver, gold, platinum and diamond Pentawards, were given out with the brand new book published by the famous publishers TASCHEN, known for the quality of its works devoted to the arts, a book that contains all the Pentaward winners for 2009 and 2010 as well as the main winners for 2008.  More than 400 pages long and printed in 12,000 copies, this book will be a formidable promotion tool for all the winners of Pentawards and serve as a reference for packaging design throughout the world.

Dessein packaging recognised on the world stage
As first time entrants into an international packaging competition, Dessein had no idea of what to expect. You can imagine our delight when we received an email informing us that our two of the three submissions for Rubra’s coffee and Kokolicious packaging had been nominated to receive awards. Absolute delight followed a few weeks later when another email informed us that we were to receive two bronze awards. Moments later a second email arrived apologising… there had been a mistake… we had actually won two SILVER pentawards! It just got better and better. Having previously deciding that we would attend the awards ceremony if successful with a bronze or higher, a trip to China was now to become a reality.
Preparing to travel to Shanghai to attend the event, we juggled work, working frantically through the weekends leading up to our departure to try and lessen the load for our hard-working team of girls at Dessein. It is amazing as to how quick it came around, and before we knew it, we were flying to China.
And what an experience it was. China is a unique place with friendly people and a history of amazing tradition. Too much to mention here, but I will blog about it further in another post.
Back to the awards night. And what a night it was. We have never met a more lovely pair of people than in the organisers Jean J. Evrard and Brigitte Evrard, who together have won more than 50 awards and have devoted themselves to the worldwide promotion of packaging. Each and every winner – no matter what you received, was met with the upmost respect and congratulations. Entrants came from all over the world with Dessein being the only West Australian with 4 other Australian studios present.
After announcement of the award winners, a standing dinner was served and rounds of serious congratulations was shared by all. The talent in the room was amazing, and many conversations with designers from France, Spain, New Zealand and Australia resulted in, what we hope will be long standing friendships.
It was a night we will remember and we hope, will be the first of many international awards to come.