Advertising your company comes in many shapes and sizes, and one of those shapes is packaging designs. Professionals should handle the creation of your packaging design: it is how you present your products and how your target audience views them.
Why Is Packaging Design So Important?
Have you ever heard of the phrase ‘first impressions are everything?’ This holds true for packaging designs.
Your products need to convey what they are at first glance. If your target audience can’t recognize what your product is, then surely your sales will be way down. People need to have a strong image of what you offer.
Not only should your packaging portray a clear picture of your product, but also represent your business. Strengthening your brand identity will set your company apart from others: it will tell your target audience why they should pick your goods.
In order to make your products stand out, you’ll need an original packaging design. Unique characteristics within your packaging will attract possible customers: for example, juice-sachets weren’t a thing years ago until some brands tried it out.
Finally, your design should have personality. Your packaging tells your audience what kind of product it is. Toys packaging have flashy colors to express adventure whereas shampoo packaging is simplistic to convey hygiene is simple to achieve. Packaging sets your products’ tone.
Aspects of Packaging Design
Packaging designs are not easy to come up with. There is a lot of theory behind the creation of products’ packaging and, thus, many elements to consider.
Color
Color sets the tone of your product a whole lot. If you sell chocolates, then brown or black packaging will tell your audience this product is chocolate.
If you want to give off an aura of gracefulness and elegance, then black, white, gold or blue will suffice to communicate that your product emanates sophistication. For example, many perfumes have black packaging to represent prestige.
Run-of-the-mill beers, for example, will contain flashy or warm colors to express you’re going to have a great time drinking them. Take a look at Budweiser, Schneider, and Stella Artois, which all contain red and white in their packaging. So on and so on.
Product Clarity
It may happen that although your packaging looks great, your product is not exactly what your buyers were looking for.
This is a fairly common issue and it comes from lazy logistics: your packaging looks too similar to other packaging, but cannot stand out by itself.
To give you an example: rolling tobacco and pipe tobacco are very different from each other, but if the packaging doesn’t make it obvious, then you, as a buyer, cannot tell them apart. They are too similar. The same applies to skincare products: is it a hand lotion or a face lotion?
Remember that your audience will only read the specifications of your product if they are already interested, so it becomes necessary to clearly express what your product is via its packaging.
Types of Packaging
There are three layers of packaging: outer packaging, inner packaging, and product packaging.
- Outer packaging: is what covers your product. It’s any sort of a container, such as a box or a bag. Sometimes, the outer packaging will be the face of your product.
- Inner packaging: is what protects your product from shipping, delivering, and carrying it. Not many brands apply this inner packaging unless they are dealing with delicate products, but using it might be a worthy investment.
- Product packaging: the final layer of your packaging and how most people will remember your product.
The type of packaging you choose will tell your audience what kind of company you are: are your packaging flashy? Do you take care of your products’ condition? Are your products simple yet effective?
There are many other questions that your audience will consider when examining your packaging, so be mindful of the impact your packaging’s layer will make.
Should I Design My Products’ Packaging?
Unless you are a graphic designer, no. There are implicit details that manage to grab your audience’s attention, and graphic designers take those into account.
Picture a graphic designer as a cook: they prepare the main dish, which is your brand, and add a ton of ingredients and spices to distinguish your product from anybody else’s.
Font style, color, and size, Gestalt psychology, color palettes, brand’s niche, the appeal of the product, who will look at the designs, hierarchy, harmony, and element position, among other things. These are but a fraction of what graphic designers need to consider before designing.Should I rely on graphic designers for my packaging design? Absolutely. Despite the fact you know your target audience, graphic designers know how to successfully charm them; after all, they are professionals at it.