Looking For Some Packaging Design Tips?
The packaging of your product may make or break a sale. It's a convenient way to distinguish yourself from those on the shelf and gain the treasured place in their shopping carts if your packaging is engaging, polished, and appealing.
But there's a fair chance that shoppers will never give it a second glance if the packaging isn't engaging, allowing the well-intentioned design to slip into the sea of background noise and static ads that we block out as we shop.
It's not as hard to target and engage consumers with packaging as it sounds, if you approach your packaging with a strategy.
Table Of Contents
1. Brand Consistency
The first and most important step in designing your packaging is to create a style guide to give you brand consistency. Having this consistency will help customers not only recognize your products better, but it will help elevate your products in their mind.
Here are a few elements you should consider:
- Create a consistent brand “language” across your packaging, website, and social media profiles.
- Solidify your brand colors and ensure you're choosing the right variations of the design.
- Identify your key Logo variations, images, and other visual art
- Find your unifying vision, and amplify it in your packaging. If you’re an eco-friendly brand, your packaging choices need to reflect it.
You can create variations in your designs with color choices, fonts, or other ways. But the key thing you are looking to create in the mind of the customer, is your overall brand. Choosing a consistent look will help you accomplish that.
2. Activate The Senses
Next, you really want to activate the senses of your customers. You want to find ways to engage with them in more visceral ways. This will encourage them to pick up your product and inspect it.
Obviously you’ll want to include high-resolution imagery that engages them visually, but can your packaging have a unique texture? The textures you choose will really make you stand out.
One of the easiest ways to do this is with a die-cut window to allow the customer to touch your product inside the packaging. Think of a memory foam shoe insert - a package that your customer can test the product quickly is likely to get the purchase over another that doesn't.
The ultimate goal is to give more information about your product to the customer as soon as possible, to reduce any purchasing resistance.
3. Create A Packaging Campaign
Packaging is one of your greatest marketing opportunities. It should take your customers on a journey from start to finish. The front is like a billboard, the sides can have key information, and the back can have high-resolution imagery. Using this “progressive story” approach will make your packaging standout.
Every single side of your packaging is a chance to incorporate your campaign. Tying this in to your advertising, website, and social media should be the ultimate goal. It creates a unifying experience for the customer, and the more personal the better.
Consider this general layout:
- Front: Logo, brand, product name and image
- Side: Ingredients, Nutritional information, or Specifications
- Side: Your brand story and history
- Top: Brand tagline
- Bottom: Brand information, website details, etc
- Inside: Assembly instructions, high resolution imagery, branding messages
As a designer, your goal is to increase the time a customer interacts with your product because then they’ll be more likely to purchase it.
Related: 7 Design Tips For Walmart Packaging.
4. Use Color Psychology
Next, customers react to colors differently. The colors you choose for your product and packaging will reach different customers. Think about what colors your favorite brands use.
Here’s a few tips about color choices:
White
Sophistication, ease, class, innocence are expressed by White. In order to create an air of high-end goods that draws such buyers, Apple made white work for their products.
Black
When used right, black is very similar to white. This can produce a commodity that cries for elegance and sophistication. Black is usually used to create a particular color association in the mind of the client in conjunction with another color.
Yellow
Yellow can be seen as bright and enjoyable, but since it stands out so much, it can also be distracting. Look at the candy aisle, there's plenty of yellow here! Yellow stands out, but must be efficiently used.
Green
Now green is all about environmentally sustainable, better quality of fitness, veganism, health, natural food, or even peace. It is also used today to point out goods that through sustainable practices, strive for wellness and positivity.
Blue
In marketing, blue is one of the most used colors. It creates a sense of a trustworthy brand, playful or even light-hearted sometimes, depending on the shade you pick. Dark shades tend towards sophistication, light shades in the mind of the customers may appeal to children or feel "light".
Purple
It's all about royalty, silk, and a posh experience in purple. The belief that your commodity is for a higher class can be strengthened by this.
Red
Red is a color which, depending on the hue, may also be used differently. For romantic feelings, red can be used, but it can also produce an energizing or even violent look. For sure, one thing is it's attention catching.
5. Be Bold
Finally, you can’t stand out in the market if you choose and by the numbers packaging design. You have to find a way to stand out. The best way to do that is to understand who you’re trying to sell to, and create for them.
Are you looking to reach the luxury customers? Or the eco-friendly crowd? How about kids who love superheroes? Each of these demographics requires a unique design approach.
The more targeted you are, the more bold you can be. This can mean an extremely minimal design, a reduction in packaging materials, or a comic-book look to your design.
Choose something that stands out on the shelf or you’re never going to make it.
6. Target Your Customers
Finally, building a customer profile will help you better target your customers. What's their work here? Where are they living? What is their amount of income? Are they either single or married?
A simpler design may be favored by some occupations and citizens, while others may want something with some real design chops.
No two demographics are the same, so in order to sell more items, your packaging should concentrate on finding the correct niche.
Engaging Your Customers
At the end of it all, you want to find a way to engage with customers and get them to choose your product. No shopper wants to deliberate between their options for more than thirty seconds, so the better your design the better your chances.
Make your packaging unique so that the comparison is a no brainer! Try using digital printing to create prototypes and market test before you land on your final design.
Don't be afraid to add a retail display and start selling more!
Bennett Designs Custom Packaging
Bennett is a premier packaging and retail displays manufacturing company striving to protect and promote our clients' products with customized corrugated solutions. When you work with us, you’re part of the family. We will partner with you every step of the way.
With our fully-integrated design-to-delivery process, we can be the single supplier source. We are an award-winning manufacturer of virtually anything corrugate. We offer everything from plain brown shipping boxes to sophisticated, high-graphic printed point-of-purchase displays, and everything in between.
Frequently Asked Questions
What’s the difference between “Solid Board” and “Corrugated Packaging”?
There are 2 main types of product packaging. Solid board (also referred to as carton board) is a solid material used to create boxes such as those used by Apple (for its iPhones / iPads etc.). Corrugated packaging is made from cardboard). Both are suitable for retail applications.
What packaging is best for my product?
The style of box chosen for your product depends on a number of factors. This includes the size, shape, weight, and fragility of your product - and even your target market. At Bennett, we can offer the full spectrum of box styles that will take your brand from plain to premium.
What Printing Styles do you offer?
We are able to produce Litho, Flexo, and specialize in Digital. We were one of the first manufacturers to invest in Digital Printing, and that’s put us ahead of the curve. Typically customers think Digital is only useful for small runs, but Digital allows you to create printing variations and create multiple runs of different targeted designs - using some of the latest innovations in marketing!
