to such consumer concerns by repositioning such information
where it can be most easily seen – onto the front label.
A global cultural shift has taken place, which has placed greater emphasis on how things are produced. Food products must now be organic, low fat, locally produced or 100 per cent natural too, and such characteristics qualify the brand’s position before the consumer; these qualities can all serve as suffi xes for yoghurt, for instance. Many manufacturers adopt a system to specify the calorifi c, fat and salt content of foods. This example uses milestones, which aims to simplify this information.
In the UK, use of the Soil Association symbol endorses the
sustainable production practices of the manufacturer, thereby adding to product credibility.
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Pictured above are bottles created by Australia’s Voice for Back Label, a value wine brand that features a creative label concept. Back Label competes in the cleanskin wine segment, which is where wineries get rid of excess wine stocks without discounting their main brands. The design solution features a single-colour screen-printed label with reversed-out lettering printed in reverse to appear backwards on the front label. This lettering appears correctly when viewed from the back of the bottle whereby it is magnifi ed by the glass.
Creative thinking
There is an axiom that packaging has to present important information on the front of the pack while secondary information is presented on the reverse. This distinction means that a packaging design tends to break down into performing two distinct tasks, where the front of pack tells us the high level product message such as what it is and what it stands for, while the reverse carries the detailed product information such as what it is made from, where it came from or how to use it. These conventions can be broken or done away with through the use of creative thinking to present consumers with something unexpected that catches the eye and differentiates a product.
Icons and symbols
The surface graphics on packaging are often
complemented by visual information that is included in order to meet statutory requirements or to provide generic useful information. This is particularly the case for food, pharmaceutical, cosmetic or degradable products, those that present a variety of hazards or those that have particular recycling requirements.
Packaging designers have to accommodate a range of obligatory communications, such as information about weights and measures, country of origin, nutrition and ingredients information, and health warnings, much of which can be easily communicated via various symbol systems that have been developed for such an end. In addition, most manufactured products have to show their country of manufacture. Many labeling symbols are nationally or internationally standardized, such as recycling symbols, the resin identifi cation codes and the Green Dot. Bar codes, Universal Product Codes and RFID labels are also common to allow automated information management in logistics and retailing.
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< Print fi nishing and materials Front and back of pack Case study >
Additional elements
Packaging, particularly for fast-moving consumer goods (FMCGs), often has to accommodate additional temporary design elements that inform consumers about special promotions or price discounts. These often take the form of roundels, fl ashes and offers.
The roundel
A roundel is a circular device that mimics a stamp or seal (as shown above). Roundels are not part of the main design and their nature implies that they have been added afterwards, principally as an endorsement of quality. Many logos, such as those providing organic endorsement, for example, often take this form. Roundels aim to give an impression of quality, but the claim has to be believable. The inclusion of such design elements may require a slight reorganisation of the main brand design in order to accommodate them.
Some roundels assume a more permanent presence than others. For example, information elements that were once communicated on the reverse of a pack now often appear as symbols on the front, such as nutritional information or the Soil Association logo, given that organic produce has increasingly become a mainstream selling point.
Flash
A fl ash is a stripe that is clearly separate from the overall packaging communication. A fl ash is similar to a belly band on a book or a ribbon on a present. It is an extra detail that is often printed with a trompe l’oeil drop shadow, which may be used to communicate such information as a new product size or weight.
Offers
Offers typically communicate when something extra is being given to the consumer over and above the normal product offering, such as the inclusion of 25 per cent more product for the same price. Offers are typically made using strategic numbers, that is those that people particularly respond to. Manufacturers will often give an extra percentage of the product free, such as 50 per cent extra, or will focus on the physical amount where the actual percentage would result in an inconvenient number, for example, by stating that the product is offered with 100ml extra free (rather than stating that there is an additional 13 per cent free). Key numbers are usually presented on a large scale as these can capture attention well; for example, ‘100ml’ may involve the ‘100’ being made larger than the ‘ml’, which will be rendered much smaller in relation to it.
Tie-ins
Brands seek to gain a temporary lift in market share through the use of tie-ins with fi lms or other events, such as the FIFA World Cup, as consumers may be more pre-disposed to buy a product that has a link with an external event that they are especially interested in. In this way, public fi gures, personalities or characters that the general public are familiar with often appear seamlessly on branded packaging, be that Shrek, the Toy Story characters, or footballers such as Lionel Messi.
Walk Socks
Pictured left is the packaging created by Greek design agency Mouse for Walk Socks, a manufacturer of women’s tights that feature humour to differentiate the packs in a market where they tend to look the same. The design features images that appear to be murder scene photographs in which only the legs of the victims can be seen, giving a good view of the tights that they’re wearing. This Walk S(h)ocks idea targeted a rather mischievous consumer, with a well developed black sense of humour.
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Roundels, tie-ins, offers and fl ashes
Here are several products that feature roundels, tie-ins, offers and fl ashes, which are routinely carried by a variety of branded packaging. Notice how the size of some of these devices dwarves the product logo and branding as the aim is to instantly grab consumer attention.
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Design agency Monnet Design created the packaging featured in this case study for the retailer Costco. The packaging is for the Gourmet Settings range of cutlery products, which is presented in boxes with different numbers of pieces, and continues Gourmet Settings’ tradition of clean, modern packaging. Updated with new colours, patterns, photography and printing techniques, Monnet’s designs provide a new visual image for the products so that they stand out on the shelf and enable consumers to see the products more clearly, and that incorporate a new materials usage philosophy principally aimed at reducing the company’s environmental impact.
Creating the structure of the boxes is typically the fi rst step in the design process. These feature a viewing window that allows consumers to view all of the pieces of cutlery included in the set at a glance. The clean-and-simple design is coupled with straightforward copywriting to enable consumers to quickly identify all the product features. ‘We have worked to make copy more didactic and easy to understand while maintaining a few moments of quirkiness and humour which give the brand its personality. The sparing use of copy and graphics is what gives the packaging its elegance,’ says the designer.
Before a box goes into fi nal production, there are several rounds of approval. Several design options are presented, often using different printing processes, such as foil stamping and matte and gloss varnishes. Mock-ups are made in China where the packaging is printed and assembled, and the president of Gourmet Settings and her marketing team help to decide which boxes will be then presented to store buyers. The fi nal decision as to which boxes are chosen is often made by the store buyers directly.
‘The brand character is not maintained through the consistent use of one colour, like many brands. The boxes are easily identifi ed by their simplicity, their bold colours or patterns, their fun and informative copy, as well as the consistent use of Helvetica across all packaging,’ explain Monnet Design.