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Key Concepts of Package Design

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Sell The Product

The fact that a package is created to hold a product is really a secondary goal from the designer's perspective. From where you're sitting, a package is created to sell a product. Many designers like to approach packaging as their own little canvas of creativity and the current trend is towards minimalism: the less the better. As much as we designers would love for that to be true, it simply isn't always the case.

Consumers are cautious and want to learn about the products they are buying. If the first time they're seeing it is on the shelf, the best way to do this is by picking it up and having a look. If all you have is the name of the product written in Helvetica on a white background, what are you teaching them? If the version of the product next to yours at Wal-Mart has a list of features and benefits, shoppers will reach for that one instead.

There are of course exceptions, but know what products do and don't fit into this category. Every designer wants to create packages that look like Apple's beautifully simple boxes with hardly anything on them but a photo of the product, but Apple can sell products like that for several reasons: a design-focused target market, an informed customer who knows what the product is already, and the fact that the Apple store doesn't let you choose iPads from the shelf but rather allows you to play with the actual product and decide on a purchase before ever even getting a glimpse at the package. Can you sell a new vitamin-enhanced sports drink the same way? Probably not.

Package designers in the real world have to deal with complications: the consumer needs to know what the product is, how to make it work and why they should buy it. We'd love for them to be fooled by a nice font, but you have to give them more credit than that.

Also, don't be tempted to think that shoppers should put design first (designers always think that), because we all know that a good designer can absolutely dress up a crappy product. Simply put, if the consumer trusts your fancy design, you'll screw them over and they know it.

The Food Watcher?

As an example, take the product below: The Food Watcher. Now, no one knows what the heck this thing is just by looking at it. The name is vague and the image sort of looks like a scale, which works with the concept of food so it's easy to be mislead.

The designers and marketers working on this product were tasked not with simply creating a fancy-looking piece of cardboard to hold the product, but instead with creating an educational ad that informs people about the product and attempts to sell them on it.

It's easy to spot marketing principles in action here. Right off the bat we see a call to action "curb your appetite the easy way." This is an interesting promise that draws the customer in, where they can of course find more information about how the item works.

Is this my favorite package design? Far from it. However, I think it provides an excellent case study for people that want to design packages from a fantasy world where people spend their hard-earned money on products that they know nothing about simply because the designer slapped some edgy artwork onto the front of the box.

Know Your Target Audience

More marketing drivel? Isn't this a design article? As we saw above, marketing should have a huge impact on how you create designs for certain products. You can't simply impose your personality onto a product, you have to do your homework and learn who is meant to buy it, what their socioeconomic situation is, where they're from, what their gender and race is and even what the typical personality traits are within this group.

The study of the target consumer is one of the most critical aspects of any product launch or redesign. It's an extremely simple concept that you can't ignore: if you know who you're talking to, you can communicate more effectively.

When The Target Audience is Forgotten

When you're browsing galleries of concept packing design, there's often a good reason that these seemingly great ideas will never see the light of day. Take the student project below. On the surface, this person has created some really cool looking packages by utilizing interesting shapes, materials and colors. From a pure design perspective, this is great work!

However, when we bring marketing into the mix, things go downhill fast. Without any research, I'm going to guess that the typical Auto Zone customer is a low to middle class male in his thirties. These guys aren't clean cut and shaven, in fact, they're not clean at all. They walk into the store with grease on their hands and oil stains all over their shirts. Not because they're generally nasty people but because they're working on a filthy car!

Typically, these types of guys like sports (Auto Zone always has NASCAR promotions), drink beer, love red meat and wouldn't be caught dead getting a manicure.

Now, weigh this group of manly men against the products above, which look like they came out of a health spa. Do you see how the target audience is way off the mark? These products might appeal to a 21 year old female college student, but Joe the mechanic would surely scoff at them and perhaps even be embarrassed to be seen carrying one of them!

Several of the men in my family are frequent Auto Zone customers and I know for a fact that if Auto Zone tried this, my dad would head to Napa or Checker (competing stores) in a heartbeat.

You could try to make the argument that reaching out to new segments is a good thing. The problem with this logic is that you can't gun for new customers in a way that alienates the people that keep you in business.

Let the Product Inspire You

One trick that is almost always a good idea is to draw design inspiration from the product itself. This can take the form of color, shape, size, materials, photography, etc. Whatever you can do to make the packaging consistent in some way with what's inside.

At heart, this is merely utilizing the concept of repetition in design. The product itself has been designed a certain way, and you're repeating that in some attractive way with the package.

The Doritos concept box below is an excellent example of this type of thinking. While most chips are round, Doritos have always stood out due to their triangular shape. This designer leveraged that trait and used triangles heavily to define shape of the box.

Along this same line of thinking, here's an awesome honey jar that breaks the bear shape cliché and instead opts for an awesome design that immediately makes you think of a honey bee.

Make It Practical

While taking inspiration on the shape of a product, don't let your imagination run too wild. There are a few variables concerning practicality that you must consider. One of these is shipping. Is the shape of your design such that the products can fit closely together in a crate or is your idea going to make the product more expensive to ship? IKEA is known for closely integrating shipping concerns into their initial product and packaging design phase. Everything from their boxes to the shapes of their cups are created with shipping economies in mind.

The second variable is practicality from a consumer's standpoint. Is the package unwieldy and awkward to them? Will is stack nicely in their pantry? One idea that occurred to me upon seeing the Doritos box above was that a small travel version could be made to fit perfectly in a typical vehicle cup holder, making Doritos a very convenient snack for road trips.

Leverage a Good Brand

My final piece of advice for creating effective package is to find ways to really feature the brand identity of the product for which you are designing. This obviously works best for those rare designers who are working with really big brands that are instantly recognizable by a huge audience.

In these cases, you might think that it's a given to feature the brand heavily, but many companies actually hide it with busy, confusing or even overly generic designs (Tropicana and Pepsi are excellent examples that we'll take a look at in an upcoming article).

Check out the result of the recent Starbucks rebranding. Yes, they simplified their logo, but in a way that really enhanced their recognizable icon rather than ruining it. The packaging that arose from this project features the logo as the hero in several different ways.

This concept is far too simple for most brands, but with a mega-brand like Starbucks it's really all you need! Notice how friendly the brand seems now with such a strong emphasis on the smiling face illustration. It's also interesting to note that most of the previous branding said "Starbucks Coffee" while this new direction simply says "Starbucks" a subtle yet powerful hint that the brand would like to emphasize that they are more than coffee (they have tea, baked goods, breakfast, etc.).

For Small Brands

This same concept can apply to brands that aren't instantly recognizable the world over, just in different ways. For example, I've never heard of the Mrs. Massey's brand below, but I think the personality of the brand has really been executed in a stellar way through the packaging.

Just the name "Mrs. Massey's" makes you think of a kind old lady making sauces at home. The designer here ran with that concept particularly well with the products on the left side of the image above. I love how the jars mimic that home made look with the decorative cover for the lid.

Conclusion

Today's packaging design advice was to remember that your goals are to sell the product, know your target audience, let the product inspire you, keep practicality in mind and always leverage a strong brand.

These tips will not only help your designs be more attractive, but more importantly, more effective. Never forget that commercial package design is most often not to be seen as your own little art project but as a marketing challenge aimed at appealing to the right people in such a way that inspires purchase behavior.

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Effective Package Design Does More Than Look Good on the Shelf

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Package design is deceptively simple. Many designers wrongfully approach this task as merely a matter of aesthetics and give no thought to the fact that packaging has to succeed on many variables. Today we'll go over some basic principles to keep in mind the next time you're designing either the package itself or merely the [...]

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The world of typography can be daunting, to say the least. For a few dollars, you can download 10,000+ fonts in just a few minutes and tens of thousands are available for free if you are willing to sort through them all. Not only are there a plethora of font famillies but there are also the font styles within each family. So, really, the question isn't whether or not you can get a specific font - it's where to begin!

Knowing what fonts should be used where and which ones should be avoided in certain situations will help narrow your search. Then you can further tone down your search by defining the look you are trying to create. Some font styles can add a dimension of femininity, others can add to a grunge design, and still others can create a more corporate look. Even so, the same font can be used to create different looks, which is why it can sometimes be best to keep an open mind when choosing a font to create a certain look.

This article provides you with a high-level overview of the different kinds of fonts and how they can be used properly. To begin with, we start with a discussion of font families and what this term means. Then we jump into categories such as serif and sans serif, and finally discuss different font family styles available and best uses for each. Of course, all discussions come with examples to give you a full understanding of the styles.

Font Families

Technically, a font family is made up of the styles available within a single font-face. For example, many fonts include styles like normal, bold, italic/oblique, and sometimes more. The various kinds types available are what make up the family.

One difference between free fonts and paid fonts are how extensive the family is. Many free fonts don't even have a bold version of the font - what you see is what you get. Often paid versions of fonts include a complete family, not just the normal version of the font.

To be fair, another key difference between free and paid fonts is often quality. Head on over to Typography.com to get a small sampling of high-end font families. Often these can be purchased in limited families to save money. So if you see one that you just have to have for your business cards, check to see if a less inclusive version is available and viable for your design.

Here are a few examples of more complete families:

Serif

One of the two most general categories in which fonts may fall are serif fonts. These fonts are anything that has extra details - sometimes referred to as flags or tags - on the letters. In the graphics below, a few of the flags and tags have been circled to demonstrate where these features of the fonts are on the letters:

The most well-known serif font -Times New Roman.
These details improve readability within large blocks of text, such as in a book or with product descriptions that take up multiple lines. The flags and tags help the letters blend into each other and draws the eye of the reader from one letter to the next.

For example, notice how the flags and tags are on the left side of the letters, generally speaking. This is to help the reader's eyes go from the end of one letter to the next letter more easily. The effect is similar to that of handwritten or cursive writing, but is easier on the eye to distinguish between the letters.

Just because serif fonts are best for large text blocks, though, does not mean that they cannot also be used elsewhere. The great aspect of serif fonts is that they are fairly versatile and can work well in titles and headings too. So, if your plan is to use the same font but maybe a different style within the family for your headings and body text, choose a serif font to keep readability high throughout your design.

The most well-known sans serif font - Arial - does not contain flags or tags.
Sans Serif

The other of the two general categories of fonts are sans serif fonts, which simply do not have the flags and tags between the letters (sans = without; therefore, sans serif is "without serifs"). Some fonts fall between the categories of serif and sans serif, but generally if you can see the extra details of the flags and tags, the font will be classified as a serif font. In the below graphics, we show you two different sans serif fonts and where to look to see why each is considered sans serif:

The fonts above are two common sans serif fonts that are in contrast to each other. Arial is a strong, bold font that is easy to read from a distance and Geo Sans Light is a light, simple font that gives designs a clean look.

In written works and web typography, sans serif fonts are generally used for titles and headings. Just as with serif fonts, however, context is king. The design or the length of text may often determine whether or not a serif or sans serif is better. Generally speaking, you are safe to use a sans serif if the text is between 1-3 lines long. More than that and a serif font will be easier for readers to follow.

As a comparison, see how the Times New Roman and Arial perform next to each other:

Red lines are used to show that the line height is identical for these two fonts, but the letters are spaced differently and have different individual heights. The Arial font takes up more space for the same amount of words and characters, even though the line heights are different.

Serif fonts will generally take up less space and be easier to read in large blocks. For this reason, serif fonts are used in books for paragraph text, while section headers and titles will have a sans serif font in use.

Decorative Fonts

Another common category of fonts is that of decorative fonts. This broad range of font families includes quite a few very creative typefaces, such as scripts, handwritten, and graffiti. Generally fonts can be grouped into the decorative category if they are not designed for the purpose of being an easy-to-read serif or sans serif font.

You typically use decorative fonts for titles or headlines in which you want to create a certain impression. Gory, scary, floral, youthful, western, are just a brief list of looks that can be derived from using decorative fonts.

This decorative font falls in the script sub-category (Font Source).

This decorative font could be defined as a graffiti font style (Font Source).

Decorative fonts can be quite stylized to give designs a very unique look (Font Source).

Script Decorative Fonts

Script fonts are decorative fonts designed to look like they were handwritten, but generally should be easy to read, or at least easier to read than, say, calligraphic or graffiti. Font families within the script category have a carefree look to them but because of their higher degree of readability, they are often an excellent choice for titles or headlines.

The styles of script fonts vary wildly from simple, clean fonts to complex designs that defy an easy definition.

Calligraphic Decorative Fonts

If you are looking for extreme font designs that look like old English or calligraphy, this family is what you want. The capital letters are generally the most complex and include sweeping shapes and curls. The lower-case letters are typically cursive-like and connect with smooth lines.

These fonts are generally not designed to be readable so much as stylistic in nature. Depending upon your purpose for the overall use of the font, you must balance the ability of your readers to understand what you are trying to say with the emotional impression the calligraphic fonts create.

Graffiti Decorative Fonts

Also in the decorative font families are the graffiti designs. These are built to look like someone spray painted the letters and can range from simple to intense in their display. As always, context is critical. If you need your title lettering to be bold and exciting but still somewhat readable, graffiti fonts can be a good fit. But not all the letters are easy to read, as these examples below demonstrate:

Dingbats/Webdings Fonts

If you are looking for specific symbol sets or just some embellishments to add to a design, dingbats and webding fonts are an ideal solution. Because fonts can be scaled to extremely large sizes, these symbols come in very handy when designing, in comparison to using low resolution icons that become pixelated when scaled, for example.

Dingbats and webding fonts are not designed to display characters. They are a set of symbols that are usually themed for something like Christmas, animals, office symbols, and the like. The types and styles of dingbat and webding fonts are far beyond what this article could discuss. Pretty much every imagineable symbol set is available. Here is a very, very small selection just to give you an idea of what is available:

Web Fonts

Another important category of fonts are web fonts. These are fonts that have been optimized for use on websites. If you own the rights to a font, you can optimize them on your own on sites like FontJazz.com, and then you can use the font on your website. But many fonts have been designed specifically for the purpose of being used on the web, which gives you plenty of options, especially if you do not want to mess with trying to write a non-web compatible font into your CSS code.

These fonts are usually optimized for web use by making a specific format available, hosting on a fast server, and reducing the size so the user can download it quickly. For this reason, if you want to give your website a facelift, web fonts are a great way to go.

One of the best sources of web fonts can be found an Google.com/webfonts where a huge selection of many different, optimized web fonts are available for free. A few from each category includes:

While you can find that perfect font to make your design complete without knowing much about typography, a bit of knowledge can go a long way into saving you some time. You can narrow your search by category: serif vs. sans serif vs. decorative, etc. Each category then has its own styles to further fine tune your search. If you work with fonts quite often, you may even want to sign up with one of the popular font sites, such as DaFont.com or MyFonts.com or any other favorite font provider.

You can also search for fonts that other designers have endorsed by searching for posts on graphic design blogs that provide roundups of best fonts within a certain category or style. For instance, ILoveTypography is a great site that provides lots of information on typography and provides a monthly roundup of the best fonts available. TypographyServed provides a showcase of new fonts from professional designers. If you are really interested in learning about the history of typography, then Typefoundry is the website for you.

Hopefully the information above has given you enough basics for fonts and uses for each that you feel more confident in your font use, no matter the media. The extra resources should be able to take you to even further heights in your knowledge of typography if you so desire.

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