7 Things a Packaging Designer Considers Before Designing
If you caught our last blog post about the rules of effective packaging design, you know that the Blades Creative team puts a lot of thought into our clients’ physical packaging. It’s important that your packaging looks good, but it should also fulfill your business and product needs.
There’s a lot that comes before the actual designing part of the package design process. Before we start sketching thumbnails or making changes to brand guides, we look at every aspect of your product packaging, from materials to sales environments to container sizes and more. Keep on reading to learn what our packaging designers do before getting to the design stage.
What’s the branding like?
Every physical product you sell reflects your brand and your business in its packaging. Think of branding as the foundation of packaging design. If your branding isn’t strong, genuine, or just not where you’d like it to be, your packaging will suffer as well.
That’s why we evaluate branding early on in the packaging design process. Does your branding align with your business’s mission, vision, or values? Does it speak to you and the people you serve? Has your original branding evolved along with your business?
If your answer to these questions is “no,” then we encourage you to think about a rebrand first before launching straight into packaging design. Focusing on your branding first will help guide the packaging design decisions you make later.
What kind of packaging needs designing?
“Packaging” isn’t limited to a single box that houses a product. There’s much more to consider — which is part of what makes our job as packaging designers so fun!
Plus, why focus only on the container for your product? Why not add a touch of your branding to as many aspects of your product packaging as you can?
To inspire you, here are just a few examples of packaging that can be customized to fit your brand:
Mailers or outer boxes
Container boxes
Bags
Labels
Sleeves
Tape or stickers
Packing paper or tissue paper
Card inserts, such as instructions, thank you notes, or receipts
Depending on the product you’re selling, you may be limited to what kind of packaging or containers you can use. We always make sure to check on that before we proceed further, since that can greatly affect your product packaging design.
What kind of items are being packaged?
Branding? Check. Packaging? Check. Next up, our packaging designers look at the items that are being packaged themselves. As you might imagine, what’s being boxed up will have a big impact on your packaging and its design.
For example, breakable items like bottles will need protective packaging that houses it safely and looks good, too. For our previous client The Bitter Bottle, a local cocktail solutions company, we spent a lot of time figuring out a box that would keep glass bottles separate and safe while shipping.
How many different designs are needed?
If you sold one single product, packaging design would be fairly simple, right? But you probably sell at least a few different items. And depending on your business, you may have multiple versions of a single item. Things like apparel sizes, quantities in a pack, or size of the item itself can vary. You may want unique designs for each variation.
We take that into account when designing your product packaging. How many unique products do you have? How many choices for one product? Oh, and do your products need to be categorized a certain way by colors, icons, or logos? You get the idea.
What kind of copy is needed?
The Blades Creative team frequently works with health and wellness companies, which means we know quite a bit about including required information on packaging.
In the United States, companies are required to share very specific information on their product labels. Food, beverages, cosmetics, supplements, skincare products — to sell these items to the public, you have to disclose information like:
The ingredients used
Directions for use
Serving size or dosage size
Warnings for misuse
Possible allergens
Storage or care information
Nutrition information
Thinking about all this required information can be overwhelming, but we have a system to ensure that you’re following the rules for your product packaging. Take a look at how we created a suite of 150 labels for Herbiary that fit multiple container sizes and met FDA requirements.
Where will the products be sold?
How will your products be sold? Before the internet, you only had to think about “shelf impact,” or how your product would stand out among its competitors when sitting on a shelf in a store. Now, you have to consider packaging for online storefronts, too.
If your shop is solely eCommerce, we can focus on packaging design that’s sturdy and safe. We might focus more on the inner components of packaging design, like filler materials or interior box printing, to make an impact on your customers.
If you sell in brick-and-mortar stores and at local markets, you’ll want packaging design that’s eye-catching and reflective of the item you’re selling. The design should speak to your customer and accurately represent your brand.
What is the client’s budget like?
Of course, we have to take budget into account when it comes to packaging design! Luckily, there are packaging options for every kind of budget.
Is sustainability and responsibly sourced packaging materials important to you and your brand? We can make it happen by choosing eco-friendly packaging that fits into your budget. Do you care more about the labels and inserts for a product rather than the outer box? We’ll prioritize those first. It all boils down to what aspects of packaging design are important to you.
Work with our packaging designer
Can you tell how much we love and appreciate good packaging design? We hope this blog post gave you a little behind-the-scenes sneak peek into our packaging designers’ creative process. You can see that, when you work with us, we dig deep into the heart of your brand and business so that your packaging design is exactly what you want.
If you’re ready to bring your branding to life with beautiful and functional packaging that feels just right, reach out to Blades Creative today. Let’s talk about what we can create together.