Small Creatures, Big Feelings: The story behind the project

What if packaging could do more than hold a product?

For Nutsa Sesiashvili, a senior New Media Design student, it became a way to encourage people to pause, reflect, and reconnect with themselves. Her project, Small Creatures, Big Feelings, explores emotional eating through thoughtful packaging design, showing how design can address personal experiences and encourage greater awareness.

Turning a personal topic into a design concept

Nutsa began developing Small Creatures, Big Feelings for her Elements III course and a competition focused on unpacking taboos. She chose emotional eating because it was a topic that resonated with both her and the people around her. “I wanted to create something that could help people relax and use a small tactile interaction to calm themselves,” she explains. The result is a packaging design for tea and chocolate bites, built around the idea of creating a small ritual before eating.

Before moving into the visual design, she researched the topic, conducted interviews and surveys, and explored existing solutions. She then created 3D models and packaging visuals, tested the designs, and made multiple adjustments before reaching the final prototype. She also developed a mobile app for packaging and completed a research paper. “The biggest challenge was the research stage, because I wanted to understand the issue deeply before making any design decisions,” she says.

Design that goes beyond aesthetics

The project represents a broader shift in how she understands design. Before enrolling in college, she viewed it primarily as an aesthetic art form. Today, she sees it as a discipline rooted in problem-solving and communication. “My studies showed me that design is one of the best platforms for expressing a voice, supporting people, and contributing to society.”

Her studies helped her bring together research, visual design, and prototyping. She also credits her mentor, Mia Klemenčić, for helping her develop the project and navigate its more challenging stages. As an Honors Program student, Nutsa conducted deeper research on Small Creatures, Big Feelings, with her mentor providing guidance and support throughout the process. One of her most important takeaways was learning to base design decisions on research rather than personal assumptions. “It taught me how to follow research findings and make design and aesthetic decisions based on them rather than simply including my own subjective opinions,” she says.

Raising awareness

Being selected as a finalist at Zagreb Design Week Awards gave Nutsa an opportunity to share her work with a wider audience and exhibit alongside Croatian and international designers. Still, recognition was not the project's main purpose. For Nutsa, its underlying message matters more than the exhibition itself. “The meaning behind the work and my attempt to contribute to something important have always mattered more to me than exhibiting it,” she says. Her goal was to raise awareness of an issue affecting teenagers and adults, particularly women, and explore how design might contribute to that conversation.

That message will reach another audience this December, as Nutsa has been selected to showcase Small Creatures, Big Feelings at the Croatian Design Exhibition 25/26, taking place at the Oktogon of the National Museum of Modern Art in Zagreb. Selected from 652 submitted works, her project is among 97 student works chosen for the exhibition and is in the running for Croatian Designers Association awards.

Looking ahead, she plans to continue her studies, develop her portfolio, participate in more competitions and exhibitions, and complete the Honors Program. After graduation, she hopes to keep creating meaningful designs and use her work to speak about issues that matter to her and the world around her. Through Small Creatures, Big Feelings, Nutsa demonstrates how a thoughtful design process can begin with a personal question and grow into an opportunity to encourage reflection and awareness.