Packaging Design 101

Packaging design refers to the design of a product's container. Although this so-called 'container' serves a utilitarian purpose of protecting and prolonging its contents, its higher purpose as a retail salesman is the primary focus of this post. On that basis and for the purpose of this post, packaging design can therefore be understood as a promotional opportunity for consumer packaged goods (CPG) aka fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) products. In short, your package must say 'buy me' in the best possible way.

Package Design Objectives 

To sell effectively, package design must always meet the following 3 generic objectives.

1. Be sensorially appealing (this often refers to the visual)
2. Communicate
3. Persuade

These generic objectives should be developed and customized according to brand-specific and sales-related pain points and needs. For instance, a brand manager's common pain point is that consumers might miss the implortant cues related to brand differentiation, brand positioning and the unique selling proposition / USP in a packaging the pre-existing design.

• Example. There is a desire to portray a rich back 'story'. This typically involves details about a special way in which materials are sourced, manufacturing process, region and history (the USP).
• Example. The packaging needs to better establish consumer expectations. Perhaps the labeling information is not sufficiently descriptive for the consumer's level of product knowledge.
• Example. The brand already has legacy in the form of a pre-existing logo or logo idea that the business owners want to retain in the new package design.
• Example. The owners wants to elevate the perception so that the brand can be seen as premium so it can appeal to high end boutique retailers. Afterall, customers do not buy products, they buy feelings.

 

To be effective, packaging design also appropriately adapts to the product's stage in its life cycle and the stage within the decision making process of your target customer whose profile (avatar) you have already established. (The buying decision process has 5 stages: 1. Problem / need awareness, 2. Solution options research, 3. Consideration / evaluation of alternatives, 4. buy decision and 5. post purchase evaluation). The abovementioned 3 generic objectives have overlapping elements. Consequently, use them as a type of checklist to double check the adequacy of your approach of each objective. ...

Your package design process

Ground 0

In short, before tackling these 3 objectives, collect background brand (related) information that will motivate the design. This includes visual (and other sensorial) inspirations and conceptual research. Examples of 'conceptual research' include knowledge about the brand's sociocultural or geographic setting that will appeal to consumers. 

1. Be sensorial! (ie be appealing to the five senses which mostly involves the visual and tactile appeal)

Make it easy for consumers to notice or find your product on a shelf amidst noisy competition. To this end, use visual assets related to your brand personality like logo, mascots, color and even packaging materials. Considering what design trends already work for competitors, ie without copying the competition, collect samples of competitive brand packaging for analysis. Considering your target market's avatar psychographics, what visuals will resonate with a consumer with his or her specific problem x?

Among other things, visibility may respond to the degree of your market's 'awareness', ie of the brand awareness, the product and even the problem. Consider the product life cycle and your market's buying decision stage. For a new product, especially one for which there is little to no awareness of the product and even the problem, the 'visibility' objective deserves even more of your attention than otherwise. If your market is not already aware of their problem, your visuals will need to focus on highlighting the problem. Consider not only the obvious needs but subconscious ones that motivate the obvious motivator. For instance, consumers often seek after physical beauty products because they feel a need to comply with social beauty standards in order to be liked and belong. This is why advertisements may use abstract imagery like people attracting the opposite sex or connecting with friends even though the product is not directly related to these concepts. 

An option is to also use a disruptive style by exaggerating elements. 

Example: extreme colors, shapes, sizes, fonts. Sexy clothing for Valentines may come in red packaging because red is associated with amorous passion. Retailers sometimes stock competing brands next to each other on shelves if their colors are highly contrasting. Consider doing this with your market leader, especially if your product quality is already on point.  

Example: emotive images. 

Example: minimalism. Beware that minimalism carries brand risk in that it compromises your ability to meet the next objective of communicating your brand's message. 

Case: The Apple computers brand has such high levels of brand awareness, often 'unaided brand recall' that its packaging can afford to be highly minimalistic in ways that competing brands with less brand awareness can not afford to be. Its brand is so well known that it no longer needs to communicate its benefits to consumers.

Case: 

Example: Your market may be unaware of side effects of current products. In some cases, this is because the side effects occur insidiously, like plastic packaging that has nowhere to go after being dumped or even recycled. Although this problem is extrinsic to the product, for some target markets, it is noteworthy because it resonates strongly with their core values. Brand managers may use compostable packaging and or symbols to highlight the problem or suggest they offer the solution. Three leaves that resemble arrows and arranged in a circle are often used to replace the symbol of 3 arrows in a circle to suggest a product's packaging is recyclable. 

Having said all the above, when undertaking this process, save yourself time! Rather than attempt to complete the perfect visuals upfront, focus on completing a basic template called a 'design skeleton'. Function before form! The skeleton should use a single basic font and only grayscale tones. 

The skeleton applies basic brand information from insights research (like brand name, taglines, key claims and other key messages) to the basics of the form (like the package shape and dimensions). It is only after establishing the design skeleton should you consider the color, imagery, pretty fonts and so on. 

2. Communicate for the brand!

Communicate the following 4 messages. However, whenever possible, do so within the context of keywords that your target uses to research information related to solution options.

1. your brand. Example. When surveyed, consumers cite large legible brandnames as one element that makes brands recognizable.

2. functional benefits. Example: If you are selling an acne treatment, your target market is likely to use search keywords (online or in a store) like 'how to get rid of pimples?', 'how to control excess oil on my face?' and 'best exfoliants'. When the packaging plays a functional role in the consumption of the product, the experience of using it also influences product and brand perceptions. Examples include cosmetic product pumps, flip versus screw caps. BEWARE of restrictions imposed by regulatory bodies for labeling claims in your industry.

3. reason to trust the brand. This often involves using the influence principle of authority, ie highlighting associations and credentials like training and other accolades that are widely considered authorities in the industry. Case: One way in which CeraVe influences buyers is with their tagline 'made with dermatologists'. Example: FDA approved. Other ways in which trust is built is through social proof; cause-related core values for mission-driven brands. 

Example: Tagline! Your purchase helps us to employ mothers who are unable to go out to work.

4. emotional benefits & end result 

Communication should be consistent with your brand personality. Examples include premium cues like dark colors, shiny accents. 

3. Persuade!

This objective overlaps with communicating the brand in a trustworthy way. As previously mentioned, it is ideal to apply principles of influence.

Persuasion is typically achieved with key purchase motivation factors. These are often the UVP that differentiates and positions the brand in a favorable way relative to the competition based on a key attribute.

'voted #1 [key role]'; 'voted most [key attribute] by the [industry experts]';

Recap of steps for product package design

1. Conduct background strategic brand research. This research should include: brand personality especially as it relates to: visual inspirations (which may be external, as from Pinterest, movies, competition, etc) and conceptual research. Collect and analyze samples of successful direct competitors. Gather various ideas so that your graphic artist can create different design options from which you can select. Also know the life cycle. This step may require a lot of collaboration between the graphic designer and brand manager. Create a list of keywords, taglines, etc for submission to your graphic designer for inclusion in the label content.
2. Expressly agree with all involved in your process on the 3 design objectives within the context of the brand manager's pain point(s).
3. Create design skeleton or ask your graphic artist to do this for you. When handing over details, parties should reconfirm understanding along the way. One way of ensuring this is for the recipient of information to (re)assure the other that (s)he understands, often by repeating details just provided.
4. Using brand research, have your graphic artist propose several rough design concept options in the 'first round'. A 'first round' is a presentation of usually 3 - 4 options. It is a survey that seeks to to eliminate less desirable versions. Respondents are the business owner or brand manager. If you are doing the design on your own, your respondents may be your brand team and even beta testers (in new product development) from your target market members. The artist should have proposed the number of permissable edits beforehand and will advise whether your edit requests are possible. Whenever possible, avoid first rounds with only 1 concept option because that does not provide safety nets if the brand manager does not like a proposed concept. For creative motivation, perform an (in)formal demand matrix, a positioning tool for sales channels based on the price level and how many customers are likely. Complete this task with competing brands, including leaders. Look at the packaging designs of successful competing brands in your desired quadrant for packaging design ideas (which has been very strongly related to price elasticity of demand for certain types of locations).
5. The design should go into the refinement stage in which edits are done based on the graphic artist's proposed options.

CONTENT RELATED TO PACKAGING DESIGN

• The 6 Principles of influence
• Consider your target market avatar's 'buyer personality type' ('assertives', 'analyticals', 'amiables' and 'expressives').
• Brand voice and tone
• Social media management
• Brand positioning 
• Use a brand style manual to communicate your brand with graphic designers.
• Before proceeding, gather as much insight as possible about the branding. This includes establishing the brand personality, positioning in the competitive landscape, main communication objectives, etc.
• In-store / Point of purchase displays / POP displays
• Brand style guidelines 
• Color palettes 101 & setting the rules for the brand style guidelines
• Fun fact. The chocolate brand Cadbury;s, received many complaints that their dairy milk bar no longer tasted how it used to. However, the only thing that had changed at all was the shape of the chocolate bar. No changes had been made to the recipe.
• As pictured below, dielines are 2D pre-press (ie pre-printing preparation) representations of your 3D package design. A dieline looks like a disassembled box whose seams have been unglued so that the entire structure lays flat. It serves as a guideline for printers. For instance, it shows 'bleed lines' (often in green), 'cut lines' (often solid red or black lines) and the 'safe zone line' (usually in blue). Bleed lines extend just slightly beyond the edge of a panel. The edge of images or other visible media should be set up against these lines as a safeguard, ie just in case the printer shifts. This ensure that such slight printer errors will not result in panels with unprinted edges. The safe zone line is a guideline to ensure that anything that absolutely must be visible is placed within its boundaries, thereby preventing cuch content from being missed by minor printing errors.