The 7 Secrets of Good Packaging

As the saying goes: The tailor makes the man. In this era of looking at faces, products rely on packaging.

There is nothing wrong with it, the first thing to evaluate a product is the quality, but after the quality, the more important thing is the packaging design. The creativity and innovation of packaging design has also become the primary condition for catching consumers’ attention.

Today, I will share the 7 secrets of good packaging, and let the design ideas be clearer!

What is the Product Packaging?

Product packaging refers to the general term for the decoration attached to the product by using containers, materials and accessories according to certain technical methods in order to protect the product, facilitate storage and promote sales during the circulation process of product transportation, storage and sales.

Product packaging is not only conducive to ensuring the safety and product quality of special products, but also can well protect the legitimate rights and interests of product warehousers, transporters, sellers and consumers.

With the continuous progress of society and the improvement of living standards, beautiful and personalized packaging needs are more and more respected by people.

A successful packaging design is not only about protecting the product and attracting consumers to buy it, but more about understanding the company and its rich corporate culture

7 Tips for Packaging Design

Tip 1: Understand the Competitive Environment

Before starting to design the packaging, we must first understand what kind of market this product can enter, and then conduct in-depth market research and ask questions from the perspective of brand owners:

▶What is my product and can consumers trust it?

▶What makes my product unique?

▶Can my product stand out among many competitors?

▶Why do consumers choose my product?

▶What is the biggest benefit or advantage that my product can bring to consumers?

▶How can my product create an emotional connection with consumers?

▶What suggestive methods can my product utilize?

The purpose of exploring the competitive environment is to use differentiation strategies among similar products to achieve brand and product promotion, and to give consumers reasons to choose this product.

Tip 2: Create an Information Hierarchy

Organization of information is a key element of frontal design.

Broadly speaking, the information level can be divided into the following levels: brand, product, variety, benefit. When designing the front of the package, analyze the product information you want to convey and rank it in order of importance.

Establish an orderly and consistent information hierarchy, so that consumers can quickly find the products they want among many products, so as to achieve a satisfactory consumption experience.

Tip 3: Create the Focus of Design Elements

Does the brand have enough personality for its products to gain a foothold in the market? not really! Because it is still necessary for the designer to clarify what is the most important feature information that the product needs to convey, and then place the main information that highlights the product features in the most prominent position on the front.

If the product’s brand is the focal point of the design, consider adding a branding feature alongside the brand logo. Shapes, colors, illustrations, and photography can be used to reinforce the brand’s focus.

Most importantly, allow consumers to quickly find the product the next time they shop.

Tip 4: The Rule of Minimalism

Less is more, this is a design wisdom. Language expressions and visual effects should be kept concise to ensure that the main visual cues on the packaging can be understood and accepted by the public.

In general, descriptions that exceed two or three points will have counterproductive effects. Too many descriptions of advantages will weaken the core brand information, which will cause consumers to lose interest in the product during the process of purchasing products.

Remember, most packages will add more information on the side. This is where shoppers will pay attention when they want to know more about the product. You need to make full use of the side position of the package, and the design should not be taken lightly. If you cannot use the side of the package to display rich product information, you can also consider adding a hang tag to let consumers know more about the brand.

Tip 5: Use Visuals to Communicate Value

Displaying the product inside with a transparent window on the front of the package is almost always a wise choice, as consumers want visual confirmation when shopping.

Beyond that, shapes, patterns, shapes and colors all have the function of communicating without the aid of words.

Make full use of elements that can effectively display product attributes, stimulate consumers’ shopping desires, establish consumer emotional connections, and highlight product textures to create a connection with a sense of belonging.

It is recommended that the image used contain elements that can reflect the characteristics of the product, while incorporating elements of lifestyle.

Tip 6: Product-specific Rules

No matter what kind of product, its packaging design has its own rules and characteristics, and some rules need to be followed meticulously. 

Some rules are important because doing the opposite can make emerging brands stand out. However, for food, the product itself can almost always become a selling point, so food packaging pays more attention to the realistic reproduction of food pictures in design and printing.

Conversely, for pharmaceutical products, the brand and physical characteristics of the product may be of secondary importance—sometimes even unnecessary, and the parent brand logo may not need to appear on the front of the package, however, emphasizing the name and purpose of the product is very important. necessary.

Nevertheless, for all types of goods, it is desirable to reduce the clutter caused by too much content on the front of the package, and even have a very simple front design.

Tip 7: Don’t Ignore Findability and Buyability of Products

When designing packaging for a specific product of a brand, packaging designers need to investigate how consumers purchase such products to ensure that consumers do not have doubts about the product style or information level.

Words are important, but they play a supporting role. Text and typography are reinforcing elements, not primary brand communication elements.

Packaging is the last link in a consumer’s interaction with a brand before making a purchase decision. Therefore, the design of the display content and effect on the front of the package (the main display surface) has an irreplaceable role in marketing and promotion.

Although packaging design does not have obvious trend changes like clothing design, it does not mean that packaging design is static or left to the designer’s free play.

If we study carefully, we will find that in fact, new styles of packaging design will be born every year, and new techniques will be widely used.