SawDust is a neat site that showcases all sorts of graphic design and illustration work: print, identity/logo design, music, packaging and more. There is a lot of great work here.
The Die Line is an excellent packaging blog, full of case studies and examples of packaging excellence, a good resource for Assignment 1.
This is an image of simple but effective packaging for another form of packaging: attractive, colourful, recyclable, reusable, biodegradable, non-plastic shopping bags from Bennetton.
Packaging design system by OCAD Advertising student Andy Luong: for Vestergaard Frandsen humanitarian aid, 2007. This is a good example of a packaging design system for a service. For further images click on the post title.