Creating effective consumer product packaging can be hard, but it is one of the most important aspects of making consumer products. Consumer product packaging should reflect the consumer’s need, be it for convenience or for certain materials. For products that should have tamper-proof packaging, such as food and medication, making sure the packaging is secure can be bolster sales. Packaging should be printed with brand colors or other colors that can help people find the product. Product details should be easy to find, and the packaging’s design should reveal all major details within a quick glace.
Consumer product packaging should reflect the consumer’s need, or the product may suffer decreased sales. For example, if a product’s main audience is older adults who want or need packaging that is easy to open, then it may be best to create packaging to address that. Such wants and needs usually are discovered through the product’s use and marketing research that details what the targeted consumer wants.
Most consumer product packaging is tamper-proof to some degree, but it usually matters most with products that will be ingested, such as food, drinks and medication. If anyone gets into the packaging and contaminates the product, then a recall may follow, scaring off consumers for weeks or months. To decrease the chances of this, and to make consumers feel safe when they buy the product, it usually is best to make packaging that is as secure as possible.
Many different colors can be printed on consumer product packaging, but colors that are misused can hurt sales. Package coloring should be easy to look at and attractive so people become interested in picking the product instead of similar products. Choosing colors that are difficult to see next to one another can be a bad idea because causes eye strain for consumers, which typically discourages sales. To help with brand awareness, it usually is a good idea to print using the brand’s main colors.
Design work for consumer product packaging should not be frivolous, because people tend to look at products for several seconds before either choosing it or putting it back on the shelf. This means the design should highlight all major elements of the product — size, materials, benefits and aspects that differentiate it from other products — in an easy-to-see area that can be scanned within a single glace. This also may keep consumers from getting confused about the product’s intended use or benefits.