You want your products to arrive in the best possible packaging to wow your customers and make them feel special. Good packaging also helps create a more premium feel around your brand and has practical benefits like protecting your products.
But when it comes to designing product packaging, what do you need to consider? Here’s a detailed guide to everything you need to know.
Product packaging is essential because it is vital to the customer experience. Good packaging keeps your products safe and is used for branding purposes, helping to get customers to feel positive about your brand.
Customers love an experience. They want to be impressed. So put the extra effort in with customized product boxes and take them on a journey.
Several things go into a great design and you need to remember all of these to get a picture-perfect packaging box design. These elements perfectly improve how you meet the purpose of packaging design with more sales and better branding.
These elements are
Using the right packaging size is proven to help improve the attention and likeability of your boxes. On the other hand, shape and size would help improve the perception of functional benefits in the customers. Additionally, you can give an impression of likeability, attraction, and brand value with the use of the right images on the packaging.
Logo positioning is another factor that would contribute to better product value and the product’s impression. Logo shapes can help your customers have a better identity for your brand. The color of your design would also help your customers to identify your products and be aware of your brand.
The use of typography can help you communicate your brand’s value to your potential buyers.
When designing custom boxes, a professional designer will do the actual design work, and a packaging solutions company will create the boxes for you.
But you will need to work closely with your designer to develop the right design for your products. Here are some of the most important factors to consider when creating a package design
First of all, you need to be very clear about your branding. Your color palette, logos, brand messaging, and more will all need to be utilized in the design of your customized product boxes.
Studies show that packaging design is the biggest factor that plays a role in brand recognition. At the same time, it plays a role in creating a brand association for customers. Using the right design and consistency can help improve brand recall for customers which can help improve the feel and emotions customers have with the brand.
So, this factor proves to be the biggest point to create your brand when using printing and packaging for the purpose. The elements used in packaging can help create a certain impression of your brand which shows that you need to work hard on their designs to improve product perception.
For instance, you can help offer information about a product’s flavor with the packaging that can indicate how high-end it is. Also, you allow your potential customers to know what benefits this product can provide them.
Next, you need to have a deep understanding of your products. Custom packaging needs to be customized for the product, and the packaging must fit the product you are selling.
This means considering the physical properties like size and weight. These are important to think about first because there is no point in creating a beautiful design for a custom box that does not fit your product.
It is a proven fact that if your packaging is complete and provides customers with all the information they need, your customer will trust your brand more. The better aesthetic properties your brand has the better quality associations customers will have about it.
At the same time, your design’s uniqueness would make customers feel that the product is special. So, an easy way to make your product look more impressive and appealing is to beat the competition.
What will your customers love? What do they expect? Considering these issues is a fundamental part of the process.
They expect their product to arrive in perfect condition, which goes back to the padding and protection. But they will also want an experience. This will differ depending on the product type and whether it is for food products, retail packaging, gift boxes, or something else.
With luxury products or gifts, the experience should be luxurious, from receiving the box to holding it in their hands to opening it up to reveal the product. This involves using upscale materials and detailed printing with rich colors.
Your customers may expect environmentally friendly packaging too, which is an important consideration. So, the steps you can follow in product development are:
There are other techniques that you should apply in designing to improve your position in different markets. For instance, you can use trends when creating new products in packaging to improve their response. Also, you should keep in mind that your customers’ communication is important for any kind of packaging design.
The actual place you sell your products must also be considered when designing your custom packaging.
If your product is next to others in a retail store, you will need it to compete and stand out with bold and attractive designs. The experience matters and the product packaging design should heighten the experience and draw shoppers in.
If you sell online, it will be more about the safety in transit and the experience of receiving and opening the packaging because it won’t have to compete on the shelf.
One final thing to consider is the competition. Wherever your products are sold, know what they are competing against, and make sure you consider this during the design process.
There are some functions that every packaging design should provide for the product and the customers who are buying them:
Now, cost-effectiveness is a big benefit you can gain if you redesign your packaging the right way. There are several ways you will have to spend less when you are looking to redesign your packaging for better logistics and supply chain results.
The lighter your boxes, the less you have to spend on shipping and supply chain resources. At the same time, if your product boxes are designed for the best waste management, you can save costs with portion sizing and resealing. If your product has good resealing properties you can improve your customer experience as well.
For instance, many food packaging companies use resealing for such items to reduce flavor loss and other issues for their products. The right design can save millions in the supply chain industry and reduce the need for shippers and other resources.
Moreover, you can save money spent on packaging to improve your cost efficiency for packaging. So, you get several benefits of packaging design in logistics and other departments.
Ensure you do not promise something with designs that do not exist in the product. The more you are clear about the product the more people will trust you. Once you give an impression of not delivering what you promised customers will be no more interested in your products.
Also, make sure that you not only create the best design but are sure that the package can carry your product. Try to make your package easy to open and carry to improve its customer experience. At the same time, you should keep it mysterious to create curiosity for the consumers.
Try to add the right colors and shades that perfectly create a better feel for your customer with being creative.
Telling stories with your designs is an essential part you can not leave out. So, when you are designing your packaging boxes, you need to know how you can use metaphors there. Also, you can use this literature attribute in the product’s copy.
The use of copy and attractive words is restricted by laws in several countries of the world. So, if you want to use words like finest, natural, homemade, and other such words, you need to be sure if you can use them on your packaging.
Sustainability is one of the most essential points your packaging should take care of to not only follow laws but to improve sales and brand image. The sustainability concept is a bit complex that measures packaging designs and materials on several variable factors.
For Instance:
Several other things determine if a certain packaging and its benefits can help with sustainability.
We know that packaging is a crucial reason for customers to decide between buying your products. So, some factors supremely emphasize how the right designs, colors, and other factors can improve sales.
Impulsive purchases, children market share, and aesthetical appeals will be discussed in this section. So, these factors can change the number of both planned and impulsive product purchases for your brand. So, let’s dive right into it.
Now colors are one of the most crucial parts in determining the response a customer would have when they see your product on the shelf. So, there are some measures that you should be aware of when choosing the right design for your product packaging boxes.
So, use of colors can help your brand associate certain feelings with the colors you use in your packaging. That is why you should be clear that the use of right colors can make or break your packaging boxes
The cultural association with colors can also play a massive role to help succeed in brand packaging designs.
For Instance:
Red is considered a color for good luck in China and India.
The same color is considered devilish in the middle east and for South African people it would be a symbol of mourning and sadness.
Yellow color is the most visible color that can help you improve the visual appeal your products could have with packaging. It is a great color if you want your products to get more attention.
The best marketing practices are the phenomenon that apply to every age group and culture, so the use of packaging design and even colors works for kids products too. There are some interesting facts that impact marketing in product packaging designs in this age group.
Some facts:
So, considering the right colors before you produce your packaging boxes can help you improve your products’ perception. Using the right colors can improve your sales for both the adult and kids market, so choose your box colors very carefully to capture the major share.
Now impulsive buying is one of the factors you can impact heavily for more sales. So, the use of visual elements and graphics of the packaging boxes plays a huge role in such purchases. Promotions are one way you can improve your results to gain more impulsive buying’s off the shelf.
Marketers can benefit from the use of promotional cues to let their potential customers have a reason to make an impulsive purchase. Sales promotions can be a great way you can gain such sales by adding them to your product packaging boxes. So, use of the right sales copy on these boxes can help you get more sales and money flowing in.
The main reasons behind such sales can be mostly social, fantastic, and emotional motives.
The most scientific reasons for aesthetically pleasing packaging would definitely be sales but how does science prove its efficacy? Well, we have a study that proves that aesthetically appealing packaging designs can drive more impulsive sales.
A study on this topic shows that aesthetically appealing packaging designs and images can increase brain activity, this activity is correlated with impulsive purchases and is considered a reason for such purchases from potential customers.
This study even says that a well-known brand may fail to get sales in competition to a great aesthetically appealing design of an unknown brand.
So, the package design can beat a well-known brand in the impulse purchase field with the beautiful graphics and designs it contains. This means if your product is impressive in visual appeal you have higher chances of getting impulsive sales.
Packaging designers specialize in designing custom boxes, and you and your designer will use all of the above factors to develop the design.
When designing packaging, they will help you decide on a type of material, the size of the box, how it opens, and how it keeps your products safe inside. They will then move on to the graphics, colors, and text you will use to get your message across.
You should be involved in the design process, and it may involve a brief with your graphic designer, creating mood boards, developing style sheets, and more.
Your packaging designer will explore other products to get inspiration. Depending on how closely you work with your designer, you may also be involved in this process.
You will need to look at colors, materials, and fonts. How can you stand out and distinguish your products? What do other brands do? How can you do something similar?
Then it gets really fun as your ideas start to take shape. Your designer will usually come up with several options for the packaging artwork and interior packaging, and they will use their graphic design skills to create various packaging designs.
You can decide which you like and don’t like, suggest changes, and go through a few rounds of revisions. The exact process will vary depending on your designer.
You may want to create a physical mockup and hold it in your hands to better understand how it will look in real life.
At this stage, also consider the type of printing. Digital printing and offset printing are two popular options. If you are only printing a small number, digital may be suitable. But offset is usually the best choice because it leads to higher quality results, richer colors, and clearer designs. It can also be used to print on more materials.
When you are ready, finalize the design. Make sure all the decision-makers in your company see them and have the opportunity to provide feedback. You could also show it to others outside your company, including friends and potential customers, to get feedback.
Once the design has been approved, you’re ready for the final stage. This is where you send it along to a printing company that offers a custom packaging solution. They will usually provide you with a mockup of your design to iron out any final issues.
As soon as you are happy, go ahead and print your custom box and provide your customers with the experience they deserve.