Smokers oppose packaging that graphically displays the effects of the nasty habit, while non smokers applaud it. Australia’s cigarette packaging has always been blatant when it comes to displaying the effects of smoking. And the latest, olive-green plain cigarette packages were in the running for a prestigious British design award.

Curator of Designs of the Year at the museum, Pete Collard said:

[It] is the result of market research that asked what colours were most unappealing to consumers…Not everything displayed in the Design Museum should be beautiful or ‘good’; the point is to open a discussion about the way everyday objects are made, the messages they send out and how we react to them.

The packaging was nominated by Mandi Keighran – a London based writer and editor – due to the packaging’s “anti-design.”

The packaging and display, while unappealing, is design at its best – a tool for social change.

Although the packaging did not win in its category, Australia’s graphic images displayed on packaging counters any cigarette company’s chance at gaining some mobile advertising. If anything, its quite embarrassing whipping out a box of cigarettes that has black damaged lungs or anything of the like plastered on it.

[Thanks Simon]

[Source: The Age]