Pringles® Packaging Redesign

Junior project

Fall 2021

Dylan Bowden, Hannah Stites, Katie Fodor

In a group, our team was able to redesign and prototype the Pringles can to be more usable and appealing for users.
Packaging, UX
While the Pringles tube differentiates itself from its competitors with the shape of its container, it becomes difficult for the average consumer to reach the bottom of the tube. The brand also uses 3 different sized tubes and small plastic to-go containers, reducing their effectiveness in production and their environmental friendliness.
We began to look at others’ hypothetical solutions as well as best practices from existing packaging that we could incorporate into our design.
As a group, we began sketching out our thoughts. We then narrowed down our brainstorm into three main ideas and sent out a survey asking users their preferences.
Although it got second place in our survey, we still wanted to explore a collapsible tube. The first prototype was a “twist tube”that would fold in on itself and shrink down to a more manageable size. We used poster board and matte board for this prototype and laser-printed it with help from our PDET partner, Katie.
Our second prototype involved replacing the center of the tube with a collapsible material. ​​​​​​​These prototypes were created with supplies including retractable ducting and plastic tubing similar to that of a bendy straw.
After creating and looking at our ideas, we realized we were overengineering and needed to listen to our results and go with our perforated tube idea.
With the perforated tube in mind, we had to find a way for the lid to fit to the inside of the tube rather than grip onto the outside. We used poster tube caps as reference, and our partner Katie whipped up a CAD model of the new cap as well as 3D printed it for us.
We began to prototype how we would pull off the perforated tube. We tried tons of different ideas and ultimately found our final iteration that we could put a label on and test.
We had colleagues test the physical “pop” of the tube. It was nice to see the perforations worked well and the product torn cleanly and effectively. 
We also took our prototypes to the store where they could be handled by actual users and received lots of positive feedback about our design.
“That’s a great idea as long as the package would be cost neutral! Spot on regarding the short cans and negative environmental footprint, they are also slower to run at the plant and slow the entire line down.” – Deb Cascioli, former Product Manager at Pringles
In the future, want to look at how we can expand the implementation of this new “tearaway” branding into things such as social media and tv spots.