Package design is one of those ID branches that hasn't yet reached full design capacity; some companies "get it" and hire top-level design talent, others give little thought to packaging beyond buying stock containers and slapping some type on them. As Colorado's Organic Pet Superfood puts it, "Our primary design goal was to create a package that would stand out in a market dominated by dull, white plastic bottles that look more like generic vitamins than premium pet nutrition. To be honest, it wasn't very hard."

That was a quote they submitted to the just-announced Dieline Awards 2010, a great look at the best of current packaging. Amidst all the neat bottles, boxes, bins and bundles, here are three of our faves:

VBAT's sexy new Amstel bottle injects some much-needed freshness into a category where all of the bottles look alike. As a former bartender, I remember reaching into the ice bins below the bar for bottles of beer, and you'd always have to look down at the caps to see what you were grabbing. This bottle seems like the first you could distinguish by feel.

UK design student Alex Creamer's amusing NYC Spaghetti, created for a class project to package "difficult items," borrows the shape of the iconic Chrysler Building. Without some sort of clear cap over the top, you could argue that the exposed spaghetti would get dirty. And I'd argue that that makes it just like the rest of New York.

Tank's 70N Pure Arctic Water bottle cleverly references its near-the-North-Pole provenance with some simple latitude/longitude lines etched into the bottle's globular shoulders. Simple, effective, and fun.

The Dieline's just posted the Award winners yesterday, and as yet there's no dedicated link; but it's worth combing through their site to check out the lot.