Packaging Design Research

What is packaging design?


Packaging is one of the key elements of a marketing strategy for a product as it is as it is the visual face that will be promoted recognised and sought out by the customer.


10 rules about packaging design


1. Conduct a thorough audit of all competitors in your market before you start, and make sure you understand their respective positioning and attributes.Then create your own.


2. Look at what is happening in other markets, e.g if you are just considering the UK or Europe, what is happening in the US or Far east that might give you a point of difference.


3. Put measures in place at the start so you can track and learn as you go, e.g measure awareness and attitude to your packaging now and in the future. A good research agency will tell you how to do this.


4. Choose a design agency based on track record, not on price and get testimonials direct from at least three existing clients. Make sure you like them and feel you can work with them.


5. Be different and ensure your pack has its own visual equity and has a strong personality and attitude.


6. Make sure your pack works at all stages of its life cycle, from leaving the factory to ending up in the users hands.


7. Protect your pack in terms of trademark law and copyright and make sure your not infringing your competitors rights.


8. Mock up how your pack would look alongside your competition. Test it in store and make sure it really does leap out at point of purchase.


9. Design with tomorrow in mind. Create a pack that is in keeping with the current market trends and future trends.


10. Consider doing some pre-market testing to make sure your pack will find a willing audience. But be careful how you test it as consumers never quite know what they are looking for until someone shows them something new.


After reading these 10 points I feel there is some great information in here into getting the best end product for my packaging design. I never really considered some of the things that are in the points above for example; " Mock up how your pack would look alongside your competition" this is useful as once I have finalised my products and have mocked them up I would need to take into consideration how they would look on a point of sale and maybe even do a survey and ask for opinions on how the product looks.


http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/about-design/Types-of-design/Packaging-design/Ten-golden-rules/




Structure and shape of packaging


Designers have 2 key tools to grab the consumers attention, graphics and structure.


The structure of a pack can serve multiple purposes:

• To create shelf standout and sell the product
• To protect the product
• To prolong the life of the product
• To facilitate the use of the product
• To reassure customers that its part of a familiar range

These points above are all something I need to bear in mind when deciding on my packaging structure, the structure also needs to compliment Googles current design and their innovative products. I want the packaging of Googles products to be inviting to pick up without over complicating it. The packaging has to be aimed at the people that would use Googles products but at the same time work well together like the CS Suite as the Google brief asks.

After taking the points above into consideration I decided to go with this net which I created, I simply measured the size of a dvd case as this is the size i want my packaging to be the height is 190mm width 135mm and the width of the spine is 14mm. I had to create this net myself as I couldn't find one on the internet. I feel this packaging type will best suit what the product purpose is for also the most common in which disks are contained so the audience automatically know where to look if they wish to know further information about the product.

Packaging similar to Google's

This is the Apple's packaging  for the Ipod and Mac products. The packaging of this product is very similar to what Google ask in their brief, Google like having large amounts of white space and nothing ever being cluttered. The packaging above are very minimalist and straight to the point as they only contain the product image, logo, name of product and some minor information none the less this gives the product a massive effect visually. The term less is more is definitely the case here but the product still gives the feel of a well designed good quality product.

I can see a packaging very similar to this working with Google's packaging as the base template would be very similar to that of Google's which it asks in the brief. This is something that I will experiment with because in my opinion having the packaging structure as a cube it would feel more inviting to pick up and look out as its not a standard style of packaging. Having a cube as the packaging is very innovative just like Google themselves.

This was the only form of packaging I could find that existed from Google. I have never seen Google package a product as their products aren't really commercial, none the less this product still follows Google's style of design with the large amounts of plain white space. In my opinion this minimalist style this packaging has gives the product a greater prestige to it and makes it look more expensive.

This is another style of packaging which is quite similar to Google's. The style design of the product is very minimalist and only contains the very basics of the product which are logo, product name and product image .

This is the Adobe creative suite packaging, Google ask that my packaging work together similar to that in the creative suite. How Adobe have done this is by the simple use of colour, this is something I will take into consideration when designing my own packaging as this could be one of the main details that separate my products.

This gave me an idea for the inner packaging of my design. Simply using 3 or so layers of corrugated card, cutting into the card as needed to fit the inside product inside. This same method can be done using other different materials maybe even materials that are biodegradable, this would make the packaging more environmentally friendly.

As I could not find any sort of Google advertising like posters, billboards etc i resulted in looking at their advertising. After watching Googles adverts it gave me a greater insight and further information on the product. These adverts also gave me extra ideas and thought running through my head. I though that I could possibly incorporate these commercials into flat design and use the same message they have in the advert. I found Googles commercials to be quite humourous but they don't seem to put the same humour in their design.