NEW YORK—The 2011 Pentawards, a global competition devoted to package design, handed out seven awards to Canadian design firms at its ceremony last week.

Gold awards went to Vancouver-based Brandever in the beverages category for its Blasted Church Vineyards design, Subplot Design, also from Vancouver, in the beverages, coffee and tea category for its work for Level Ground Trading, and Toronto-based Davis in food, confectionary and sweet snacks for its Nabisco-Snackwell's package.

A silver was awarded to Vancouver firm DBD Canada/Karacters Design Group in the food, food trends category for the packaging system it designed for Camino. Bronze awards went to Brandever, Davis and dossier creative inc. in Vancouver.


"It's always gratifying to be recognized within the packaging industry," said Bernie Hadley-Beauregard, principal of Brandever.

"For us, the really sweet thing is that Blasted Church has been a long-standing client of ours," Hadley-Beauregard said of his company's Gold award-winning entry. "In this last iteration of the packaging we took them to a whole new level with the design, and it has been rewarded. It confirms that we're on the right track with them." The design also won a €5,000 (approximately $7,000 CDN) special prize from label technology developer Avery Dennison, a Pentawards sponsor.

The number of Canadian firms awarded is a sign of the country's strong industry and marketplace, said Hadley-Beauregard. "I think we have a very healthy design infrastructure and ability to be very creative. But also, I think it's a sign that our economy is still very strong relative to a lot of places in the world, and with that, you can get great design coming out," he said.

The winning entries will be exhibited at the DesignPack Gallery in Paris next year.

To see all the winning entries, visit the Pentawards blog.