It&39s estimated that the average consumer spends less than a second scanning shelves, and in that time, will make a decision on whether or not to purchase any given product. If you are that product&39s manufacturer, you want to make sure that in that critical time frame, the consumer will be drawn to your merchandise, have a desire to pick it up, inspect it, and make a decision to buy it. Whether this is a new product, or a reformulation of an existing one, you&39ll be smart to turn to a package designer to ensure that in that important fraction of a second, your target audience will know your product is there. The discipline of package design focuses on producing a container that will get noticed. By skillfully teaming colorful graphics, a unique shape, or any other eyearresting method, the package designer is a key player in any company&39s marketing effort.
No matter how beneficial the product inside the container may be, unless a consumer decides to pick it up, that product will never get tested. "retailers are not allowing things to remain on the shelves very long unless they sell," explains marcia romanuck, creative director for the design company. "there&39s a big competition just being allowed to be on the shelves. Because of the competition, you&39ve got to do a lot more to attract someone." simply defined, package design is the discipline of creating the container, graphics and visible outer presence of a product a consumer buys at retail or might receive in the mail. This container may range from a simple bottle and label to an elaborate box or system of boxes and inner packaging.
Although graphic designers and others might dabble in it, the threedimensional nature of package design separates it from other creative disciplines. In addition to the visual element, other considerations such as the material to make the package and the manufacturing capabilities come into play. To the uninitiated, the practice of package design may seem to be simple. "most people think they can do what we do," explains jon franz, a principal with aha creative solutions. "they might have a computer on their desk and some simple software and they think that package design is not that important anyway. As far as i know, no one has ever died of poor package design, but i think some products have failed because of bad package design." david green, president of green ink, a package design firm, says, "everybody needs it, but nobody knows they need it until they look at what&39s available and what we do." since the package is often the first impression made by a product, green says that hiring a package designer is, "what you have to do in today&39s market place to compete with other companies.
Our main goal is to make the client&39s packaging so identifiable that it&39s immediately recognized by the person in need of the product line." "the attention to packaging itself has become popular," says michael howell, design director for match, inc. "the focus is just as much on the package as it is on the product inside it. Companies are realizing that there&39s a lot more potential to communicate. In the past, it was just a box to protect a piece of merchandise. Now, it&39s a communication vehicle that promises an opportunity to not only tell about your product but also what other services you offer and the family of products that work with it." according to phil federspiel, a principal in group four design in avon, connecticut and president of the brand design association, the trade group representing package designers, most shoppers "scan and snatch" goods off store shelves rather than read anything. "they don&39t dwell on it," federspiel explains. "they know what they&39re looking for, and they want to find it, get it in their cart and move on. With few exceptions, people don&39t do comparison shopping at point of sale on a consumer product. Whatever product the consumer desires, they tend to buy the brand they recognize in the size that meets their consumption requirements. If the price is acceptable and those two requirements are met, it&39s a done deal.
The ability to quickly recognize your brand and find it is an important issue." although the discipline should be easily understandable, there&39s more to package design than initially meets the eye. Says steve martin, a partner in young & martin design, in defining package design, "it&39s an extension of the company&39s marketing strategy. It&39s a wonderful opportunity to get your message out." while there is an esthetic element involved, package design is first and foremost an important component in creating sales. "an effective packaging design that is appropriate and targeted will generate sales," says frank golley, a principal in cokergolley design, who has designed packing for such companies as cocacola, conagra poultry, flowers industries, and georgia pacific. "repeat sales and followup business require the product inside the package to meet the expectations that the package sets up. Whatever communication the product sets up with the consumer, it has to follow through and the product has to match that visual representation." tom antista, a principal in antista fairclough design, calls his discipline, "a great area of design to work in. It requires more than just design skills. What you&39re designing is really only a small piece of a bigger process." indeed, there&39s more to package design than creating an interesting looking box. "good packaging doesn&39t end up that way by accident," says antista, whose client list includes anheuser busch, cocacola, fetzer vineyards, and wolfgang puckfood co. "what&39s behind good packaging is usually a lot of research that goes into who is buying the product, which creates a lot of information about the container." "we don&39t exist without marketing," states golley. "that drives the need for designers. "without marketing departments, we would be artists and have no marketing viability.
" when a package designer is hired for a job, they usually receive a "design brief" from the client which provides basic information about the product, its target audience,&39 and its uses as well as such containerspecific information as the volume it needs to hold and how it will be packed and displayed. Budget information will also provide the designer with parameters needed to determine the necessary materials and manufacturing process for the package. "we then look at developing imagery," says antista. "we look at developing color schemes that work within the category that aren&39t so outside the category that it would alienate the target audience." from there, the design will go to focus groups to gauge the reaction of the market, and be subjected to quantitative and qualitative analysis before the design is approved. The skills required for package design go beyond a good sense of design. To do a proper job, a package designer needs to combine the knowledge of a structural engineer with the esthetic sense of a graphic designer. "packaging design is not just about looking good," states golley. "it is technically oriented and requires a fairly indepth knowledge of printing and production. Printing for packaging has some very specific limitations, and you need to understand the production process. There are very specific constraints, and we design for them and integrate them into the whole process. When the consumer is holding a product, it needs to be the exact same visual representation the marketing decision was based on in the beginning." the time at which a designer is brought into a project varies from situation to situation. Usually, package designers are brought in for a new product as soon as the marketing department hatches the idea and a presentation vehicle is needed. A design firm will be called in to create a 3d form factor using either stock containers, a custom container, or a combination of custom and stock. Then, proprietary graphics and labeling are placed on the container to differentiate it from other products. "it depends on the sophistication of the client," says antista. "the larger, mainstream clients usually do a fair amount of research in terms of a market niche and opportunity niche first." "with some clients," explains romanuck, "we&39re brought on even before the product is made. In one case,
we were brought on early in the early marketing stage, and we consulted with them in terms of product color. At times, we&39ve been involved in product naming. The ideal situation is where we are involved with something from the very beginning and brainstorm in terms of the shape of package, what materials make sense and have input both technically and economically on the best kind of container for something. I think it&39s important that we&39re involved in a project from start to finish and have control over it." golley agrees that it&39s beneficial if the designer is involved in a project from the early stages. "we can take a creative brief of a desire," he explains, "and turn that into visual representations. When we&39ve gotten involved later in a project, the problem was that we were working with a set of preconceived notions people had about certain things. These were things that were not appropriate and we had to go through an effort to evaluate them. When we&39re involved early on, we can give a full range of ideas." describing the design process as linear and experimental, golley says he experiments with a number of options to get a set of solutions.
