Package Designer
Package designer. A crucial element of any business wanting to sell a product. Having attractive, creative, and eye-catching packaging can have a significant impact on sales, revenue, and brand awareness, which are all key for the growth and success of a business.
Package designer are creative professionals who own the skills to design safe, sustainable, attractive and cost-effective packaging for different products and businesses. They contribute to each stage of the design process, from the initial planning to the final checks before the products release, knowing how to successfully use a range of design software to complete their tasks.
The primary responsibilities involve understanding and executing the design brief they're given by a client of in-house marketing team. They may also consider the product the business is selling and plan the packaging themselves. They have to have a strong understanding of the market, including trends, and applying this to the product on which they're working.
The whole process goes a little like this..:
Supervise the design process
Present design ideas to clients
Work with clients to understand their needs
Evaluate market trends
Consider budgeting and environmental impact
Redesign packaging based on feedback
Some necessary skills include..:
Attention to detail
Communication
Design skills
Problem-solving
IT skills
Trend Forecasting
I honestly couldn’t see myself doing packaging design in the future. I think I'd enjoy freelance designing, which would give me the freedom to make myself a personal brand to attract clients and projects I'd enjoy, but the whole process of supervising, presenting, evaluating and considering the impact is a whole load of work I'm just not interested in pursuing. I'd also have to develop my design skills and IT skills if I wanted to successfully do freelance design, as my experience in those areas is purely fashion related.
Below are some examples of previous packaging designs I've produced for the brand Vivienne Westwood as a response to a marketing assets project.
Credit: Eden Harvey (Me!)
Credit: Eden Harvey (Me!)
PR Packaging
Is it sustainable?
Vivienne Westwood's packaging is plastic free, made of Remake paper in a 100% green energy factory. All paper and cardboard packaging is recycled and recyclable. Tape is paper and fabric fibre mix and recycled shredded cardboard is used as padding.
The tags could be made from a process where you apply cornstarch, which is biodegradable, to fabric which stiffens the material, and the writing can be printed with water-based inks.
Is it innovative?
Vivienne Westwood doesn’t currently send out PR packaging. It would be a new marketing strategy for the brand.
My rationale
PR packages are a marketing strategy companies use to promote their brand and reach a wider audience through celebrities, influencers and journalists with a social media platform. I believe by sending PR packages, this would bring attention to Gen Z and younger generations who take influence from their idols online.
Is it meaningful?
It is a meaningful technique that will appear to younger audiences who take influence from social media and unboxing videos and will gain traction to the brand and its products and ethics with sustainable packaging.
Furoshiki wrapping (scrap fabrics)
Is it sustainable?
Using scrap fabrics is a sustainable and reusable technique. By using the scraps of fabric already produced to create garments it is more sustainable than recycling paper and cardboard for packaging.
Is it innovative?
Vivienne Westwood used limited edition furoshiki scarves before as packaging for her collab with Lush, but these scarves were made specially for wrapping, and not out of already produced fabrics.
My rationale
Using scraps of fabric as wrapping is a fun, sustainable technique. The process will appeal to consumers online who enjoy watching unboxing
Is it meaningful?
It would be a meaningful technique for the brand as they are already on a strong journey towards sustainability. Customers would also more likely enjoy opening a fun, fabric package and being able to keep or reuse the fabric sample however they like.
Below I've looked into some creative, innovative packaging that caught my eye, to get an insight into what kind of packaging designs are trending. I then gave my honest opinion on the designs.
Credit: Zoe Shneider
This is a packaging design by Zoe Shneider for 'aggressive gum, which insults the user as they pull its teeth out'. I absolutely love this design and was immediately attracted to it the moment I saw it. It is such a fun, and incredibly smart idea using a mouth design for gum, the gum itself being the teeth. I love the contrast between the colour of the packaging and the white of the 'teeth'. On the contrary, the lack of contrast in the colour of the text on the front of the package creates a much softer, less loud feeling that is just pleasant to look at. This creates a nice juxtoposition between the outside and inside of the packaging and really highlights the white 'teeth', which is the product itself.
This is a design by Monica Wang for a tissue box. Once again, this design immediately caught my eye with its interesting graphics, and incredibly creative use of the tissue showing out of the top of the box. The design makes it feel like more than just a boring old tissue box, when looked at from the right angle, a character appears to be smoking, the tissue made to look like a continuation of the smoke as its pulled from the top of the box. There's no overwhelming use of bold colours, as the graphics speak loudly enough, which I personally think is a difficult thing to do when colours are normally such an important design detail. The packaging almost looks like a household decoration, way too good to throw away once the box is empty, so I could only hope it's refillable.
Credit: Monica Wang