Introduction
Effective package designing understands consumers, permitting them to feel satisfied they’re making rational decisions while still appealing to emotions, cultures, and preferences. It’s a lot to ask from simple package designing, but brands know effective packaging can mean the difference between a successful product and one that languishes.
Packaging is known to be the identity of a product. Your product needs to get observed among the hundreds of other products available on the shelf. Packaging is an essential part of any Branding Strategy to glamorize a product in a way that would not only catch the consumer’s attention but also would be a great source of advertising. Packaging plays an essential role in educating the customer about the product; it’s also like having a direct interaction with the brand.
Adequate packaging should convey business values and commitment to sustainability and should accomplish various things, such as:
- It must draw customer attention
- It should appeal to positive emotions
- The brand and purpose of the product should be clear
- Strike to instantly recognizable
- Should attract the target group
- Display product values
The following are the essential elements of effective package designing:
THE PRODUCT
What kind of product it is? Decides your packaging style and its value addition. Several factors should be considered, such as shelf life, quantity and target segment of product consumption. Designers should ensure the aesthetic and utility value of the product while finalizing the box. For example, some food products require a particular temperature and freshness to be maintained.
SHAPES
The market is filled up with several types of shapes such as rectangular, boxes, cuboids, cylindrical and spheres. But the one with unique ways has always stuck the attention of customers. The shape does not guarantee the success of the product, but yes, it will help to gain brand visibility.
COLOURS
Let’s understand there is no rule when it comes to colour in the food packaging industry. It completely depends on professional creative agency skills about how they creatively select and render colours on the packaging.
Colour can be associated with a primary ingredient product. Flavours are also an important part of selecting colours in packaging designs. Once the final colour is selected, make your brand be connected with colour for a considerable amount of time. As frequent changes in colours can lead to brand identity crises and confusion among customers.
IMAGES
When we enter the store and check the product on the shelf, at first look things we notice are images. Brain and eyes register pictures faster than words, so choosing images is a very important part of food packaging design. The visual stimuli induce your mind to function in a particular manner which is having a subconscious effect.
Images in the food packaging industry can be of actual products inside the box, ingredients or pictures that are a reflection of goodness associated with that food product. Particular relevance is always appreciated as it helps to connect food with customers’ emotions.
Images should be minimalistic with a clear picture of the message which is intended to be conveyed instead of a complicated and unclear message. The images displayed should be very professional and should increase the desire to like them; this is all possible with a professional photoshoot. A professional food stylist will make sure to capture images with the correct angle and will highlight the required elements in the images in depth.
TEXTURE
The type of food is from coarse to grainy and smooth to glossy. But a lot of research studies and analyses by experts say all designs do not fit well with all types of materials. It takes certain types of material to increase the efforts of creative genius, which can be discovered by understanding trend patterns and by using several new technologies.
It is an important decision to be open and consider multiple options before finalizing the final one. It is also important to trust your instincts while making the decision. There is also the potential of preservatives getting reactive with a packaging box. Which will create toxins hence the type of preservative, and its sustainability to the kind of box is analyzed before finalizing everything.
TYPOGRAPHY
Typography is just as powerful as colour when it comes to branding. Every typeface has its personality and sets a certain tone for your brand. And if you want to attract attention, you can’t go wrong with bold fonts and serifs – they’re timeless, understated, and easy to read. As mentioned, fonts also have different meanings.
The format of Packaging is designed in such a way that it attracts the attention of the consumer and can be easily spotted on the shelf. The format of packages largely depends on the products, keeping in mind the requirements and convenience of a consumer.
GUIDELINE INSTRUCTIONS
Food is something which we consume, so this part of the information is important for the client to check before making any purchasing decision.
Shelf life, manufacturing batch, address of the company, barcode, nutritional facts, ingredients and many other mandatory facts mentioned on the package. Advancement in technology has the lead invention of sensors which will alert customers about food shelf life and safety issues. Clean label initiatives are finding ways to consume quality information onto cleaner-looking packaging through technologies like QR codes.
New inks and printing techniques are opening up the new probability for packaging artwork, so packages not only work better, but they look more enticing too.
Instructions on how to cook and how to store are mentioned through infographic manner it is an easy way to hold customers.
SUSTAINABILITY PACKAGING
With the holistic approach, we can’t ignore the dire consequences of various kinds of pollution, global warming, and wastage on the planet, the present, and more importantly, the future generations. We must act now to ensure a better tomorrow. So people support and prefer purchasing those brands whose packaging is either recyclable or made with eco-friendly materials which are sourced from natural resources.
If it is eco-friendly, then colours should be earthy and natural while images should also depict wellness.
POSITIONING
Brand positioning is a process of creating a perception of the brand image in the mind of target customers. Positioning is built based on the target market if your food is served home-made, organic, or health-conscious people, then the packaging should reflect those values and significance.
Each category of an audience has different buying behaviour, and preferences and they tend to select the shopping outlet based on it. A consumer who purchases in a supermarket will quickly get attracted to the colour and shape. While the person in the boutique would be a little different as he will be more interested in the details and the elegance of the product. These factors should be taken into consideration while designing food packaging.
SAFETY OF PRODUCT
Products travel along to make their way and reach customers; it travels across states and sometimes internationally. International packaging should maintain global standard guidelines which will help the product to move easily across boundaries. All products are subject to experience an amount of wear and tear before reaching the path or the end customer.
The carefully wrapped cover should be capable to remain the same in harsh external conditions. It should be protected from all kinds of environmental exposures and physical damage.
COMPETITION
Brands are investing enough cost in researching to understand customer patterns and expectations. In today’s era, competitors should be treated as a large source of information to gain industry information. Even the failure story of competitors will help to gain insights and information which is relevant.
Healthy competitions are always good for customers as they provide betterment of the product as a result. It is still an effective way to get done your food packaging designs from professional creative agencies. Who is having a keen understanding and knowledge of the packaging industry?
Conclusion
We all are attracted to the brightest product on the rack. Food branding plays an important role in the success of the product as it attracts consumers the most. The most creative and exotic food packaging design will be bound to draw the maximum attraction. It is not necessary to ensure sales, but it displays the product in the race. A product with an attractive cover design on the social media page urges customers to give it a try. It increases brand visibility, awareness and customer reach.
The Pixibit Design Studio is a leading Graphic design company in Rajkot, Gujarat (India) that provides innovative services in Digital Branding.
