12 Hints for Packaging Design

A great product ends and begins with packaging.  I say that because it ends at the manufacturers with the packaging, and it begins for the consumer with the packaging.  Therefore, the packaging supplies and designs you choose are a crucial component to your sales and marketing.

In short: choose packaging supplies that properly protect and exemplify your product, choose a team properly qualified to help you come up with and develop your design, and don’t cut corners!  Here are a few more ideas to get you started:

1. Use a design that looks like it’s covering up a different design. People will automatically stop to check it out.
2. Color schemes never fail to get someone’s attention, especially when they are presented with clean lines and a minimalist approach.
3. Repeat surface patterns have been found to attract customers. A lot of times people will be willing to try a product simply based on how committed the packaging supplies appear to be, and repeat surface patterns definitely do that.
4. Try to incorporate a hand-made element to your packaging supplies. This causes people to assume that you have a loving touch in your product that mass producers don’t have- and they would be right!
5. Color blocking and geometric shapes are pretty trendy right now, and sometimes you just need to follow the trend.
6. Using strange elements, like an alien-looking language, will draw people in. People are naturally curious and just want to know what something is.



7. Clear packaging supplies have begun to be really appreciated by consumers. Its an honest approach that allows a consumer to see that you are not ashamed of what you are trying to sell, and that you have nothing to hide.
8. Incorporating objects and designs that directly represent and compliment your brand are obviously helpful.
9. Don’t go with the status quo! Sometimes people buy water in a box because it’s in a box!  I mean, otherwise it’s just like all of the other waters on the shelf.
10. There is no law that says your shoes have to be sold in a traditional, rectangular shoe box. You don’t have to sell your jewelry in plain, flat jewelry boxes.  It’s okay to think outside the box.
11. If you want to be taken seriously then be serious in a way that isn’t condescending. If you want to be funny than be funny in a way that will draw everyone in.
12. Look into how your competitors are selling their products and try to see what the pros and cons of their design is. Take that and use that information when designing for your own product.