Boost Your Brand Image! Packaging Design Trends Prediction For 2017

By Aamina Suleman , Sep 27 2016

“In the absence of any other marketing messages, our packaging – comprised of the trademark, our design, color and information – is the sole communicator of our brand essence. Put another way – when you don’t have anything else – our packaging is our marketing.”

– Philip Morris

Packaging design has the power to make or break your brand image. People make an instant buying decision based on the appearance of what the product has been wrapped in. Right?

You may have an amazing product but if it’s dressed shabby, no one will want to spend their money on it. To avoid such a disaster, it’s essential to focus on the packaging design of your product. So here are mistakes I think you must refrain from to affirm brand success, and the packaging design trends you need to win the game in 2017 and 2018.

Packaging Mistakes You Don’t Want To Make!

Packaging design isn’t the same for all brands. It depends on the:

  • Brand image you’re aiming to portray
  • Industry or business niche you belong to

Nevertheless, there are four mistakes everyone must avoid.

Selecting Wrong Packaging Material

You may want to live in a house made from chocolates, but will it survive the summer heat; and will it keep intact front of chocolate lovers? I doubt it. Hence, it is imperative to use the right material for your products.

Some products are liquid and others are solids, some are fragile and others are durable; it is important to segregate the type of products to know the befitting packing material. You must know whether you should use rigid/flexible plastic, biodegradable or recyclable matter.

Eco Packaging Design
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Currently, scientist and brands alike are exploring renewable materials such as elephant dung or milk protein to pack products. This juxtaposition may sound gross but they’re definitely environment friendly in case this is the kind of brand image you want to publicize.

Adding Misleading Product Information

According to the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission, “businesses are not allowed to make statements that are incorrect or likely to create false impression.” The organization goes on to state, “This rule applies to their advertising, their product packaging, and any information provided to you by their staff or online services.”

For example, a brand from Thailand known as Malee sells coconut water stating clear on its packaging that the liquid inside is “100% coconut water”. This is a straight-forward claim and it must be true otherwise they can be sued. So if you don’t want to wreck your brand’s image, always write the correct information about your product and brand on the packaging.

coconut water packaging design
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Not Dissecting Information In A Hierarchy

Chucking information on packaging is a sin! When typography is there to make life easy, then why scatter text on the canvas? As Morris said, packaging is “the sole communicator of brand essence”- then you must ‘structure’ what you say on the packaging of your products.

Founder of Strategia Design, Deborah Ginsburg explains “You can have an amazing product, but if you can’t convey that on the packaging (through the way and order in which you communicate) then no one will know.” Your customers will have a hard time preferring your product over others because they simply won’t understand what you are or what your product is.

Youngs Seafood Packaging Design
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We’ve learned through-out our lives that presentation is the key to success. If you want to triumph, you should know how to use typography in packaging design to effectively format the marketing copy on packaging design.

Overlooking Customization In Design

Design is an all-encompassing word, which includes several key elements of packaging that can have a serious impact on your brand image. These include:

Color

As per a visual shared by Kissmetrics, for 85% of buyers color is the primary reason to purchase a product. In fact, color has the potential to increase your brand recognition by 80%. So when you assign a project to a professional graphic designer to design packaging, make sure you specify in the brief the colors that best represent your brand and the particular product. This is a step a designer can do for you, but you must know that color greatly augments the visuals of a packaging.

Texture

When you’re buying a digital product, for instance in games, you can’t touch it or feel it. But when a product can be held physically, the texture of packaging can make a huge difference. In a 2010 experiment conducted by Nocera and Joshua Ackerman of MIT Sloan, they evaluated that the touch of an object deeply impacts the way people think about it.

perfume packaging diesel compressor
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Since packaging is a major part of your brand’s marketing process, it is a must that you use a texture that accentuates your customers’ experience with your product. Some brands may not cover their entire product in textured packaging, but will use the techniques of embossing to uplift a section of the packaging in order to break the monotony of plainness.

Shape

The best way to stand out among the rest is by customizing the shape of your packaging to fit the product. Now there are two ways to decide this: 1) by analyzing the function of the product, and 2) by focusing on the form of the product.

When creating a custom shape for your product, make sure that it is appealing and it works. For example, if the shape of the packaging is triangle then assure that it is easy to grab and store.

Shape packaging
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Also, many tech and mobile brands make sections in the packaging of a product to easily organize the different parts of the device.

Illustrations

Hiring skilled illustrators to brand the packaging of your product is an interesting choice. Companies collaborate with designers to create custom illustrations for their limited time offer products or ones that are launched in specific regions. For example Coca Cola worked with illustrator Steven Harrington for a special edition of the cola in Spain.

steven harrington coca cola packaging
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Such activities boost your brand image and takes your consumers from their daily routine to something unexpected. HubSpot Academy suggests that brands should give their target market a “magic moment”. As far as packaging is concerned, the way to do this is by creating themed or customized designs to delight them.

Kalev Chocolate bar designs
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Ergonomics

An experimental psychology professor at Oxford University, Charles Spence elucidated from a one of his researches that the sound of the soda can lid opening makes a drink seem fizzier. This influences a customer’s next decision to buy or leave your product. No one wants a flat drink nor do they want a hint that the product is not what it should be.

The interaction your customers have with your product’s packaging is meaningful for your brand image.

coolest product packaging designs
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When you gift somebody something, you pack it in a colorful wrapping paper and may also add a bow or ribbons with a greeting card. Why do you do this? You want the receiver to feel special and enjoy their time in the realm of mystery figuring out what’s inside.

Heinz Packaging Design
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This same ideology should be used in commercial packaging design. It can be done through a unique shape and opening folds, or you could use graphical tape to pack things in bulk.

graphical tape Packaging
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Photographs

You could rip off a picture from SERPs but this won’t do the trick. Inspiration is good but copying and stealing is not. It is best to hire photographers to capture custom pictures for your product’s packaging. There are many useful techniques for photographers to take awesome photos that’ll visually translate your brand’s values, identity and the product’s idea into the package design.

Quinoa packaging design
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While most brands today are embellishing their packaging designs with illustrations and typography or using the minimalism approach, images bring life to packaging. Using photographs of people will humanize packaging design.

Note that when you’re adding pictures of food items, then there are chances consumers may feel that the actual product is not as shown in the image. So be very careful.

Avoiding To Understand The Target Market

You must know who you’re making the product for, otherwise all your efforts will go to waste. In a whitepaper by Scotland Food & Drink on how to choose packaging, it is advised that the “better you can define your target market, the more effective your subsequent strategies will be.” It is vital to know the buying patterns of your consumers.

As described by the organization, you need to research the aspects that can influence consumer experience. These may include:

  • Portability
  • Child proofing
  • Resealability
  • Environmental concerns
  • Portion size
  • Weight of packaging

The way to ensure victory is by developing and executing a spectacular marketing mix plan, which also includes packaging when it comes to product.

Packaging Design Trends And Why Use Them

Do you want your products to sell and keep selling? Keep yourself updated on what’s in and what’s obsolete in the design world of packaging. Surprise people by using one or more of these amazing and popular trends that’ll definitely boost your brand image! Product packaging design companies must update themselves with latest techniques and design trends to effectively use their resources to create packaging that is beautiful and functional.

Packaging Design Trends 2017 infographic

Tell us which packaging design trend do you plan to use.

Wait a sec!

Don’t forget …

3D Printed Package Designs

As per Worldwide Semiannual 3D Printing Spending Guide by International Data Corporation, the industry of 3D printing will expand rapidly in the next three years. So by 2019 the industry will grow to $26 billion from $11 billion in 2015.

3D printed object production is in full swing; in fact doctors are placing 3D printed organs inside their patients. Should we begin to think that in 2025, the world will be surrounded by such net-like printed materials? If companies are investing in this technique to make products, then it won’t be wrong to predict that packaging design will soon be made using this additive process whereby layers of materials make a 3D structure.

Do you want to see that happen?

3D Printing Trends
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A marketing design enthusiast, super passionate about the evolving scope of visual communication. With 3+ years of experience in content marketing, Aamina is driven by insights, inspirations, trends and creativity. She loves to travel, eat khowsuey, sip coffee, and watch mysteries.

 

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