Food Product Packaging Design Inspirations: An Effective Guide
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Be it a lip-smacking snack or your favorite finger-licking good chocolate, however delicious it is, the first thing that attracts you is its packaging. Food packaging not only highlights your product out on the shelf but will also protect them from environmental factors that contaminate them. Therefore you need to design the right packaging type and also make sure that you follow the latest packaging trends to stay at the top amongst your competitors.
Why is effective food packaging so important?
Packaging preserves your food quality and attracts your customers as well. Just like how you judge your favorite chocolate based on its package, so will the customers. Though the key role of food packaging is to contain a food’s portion, here are a few other key benefits.
Protection
Packaging companies create distinct packaging that is ideal for the type of food. Businesses conduct thorough research to offer food safety and get the best packaging design ideas that can protect the food from chemicals, light, and other contaminants. Improper food packaging not only affects the quality and taste of the product but also tarnishes your brand recognition.
With trends that keep changing dynamically, there are more and more players entering and a lot of products for the consumers to choose from. So, it is a difficult task to stand apart. A well-packaged food has a superior shelf life.
Transportation
There are various types of food packaging around us, starting from metal cans, cartons, boxes to bottles. The packaging is done in these food containers so that they can remain safe during transportation. Thousands of products already exist in the market, so your brand must have its identity visible.
Influences customers purchasing habits
The colors and style you incorporate in your food packaging play an effective role in influencing your purchasing decisions. After all, our brain has got various reactions to colors, so choose your colors accordingly. For example, the white color used in food packaging material conveys simplicity and purity, making them the best for dairy products. Orange colors in packaging stand for energy and fun, making them apt for milk products. Orange colored packaging material stands for energy and fun, making them perfect for sports drinks and summer beverages. Also, you could match colors and flavors like red for apples and yellow for bananas. Fonts, too, have an important role to play here. Make sure it is readable for your target audience.
Making your brand stand out
There are plenty of products in the markets, so yours should definitely be something extra to catch your customers’ attention. Packaging helps you to differentiate your brand from similar products available. Product packaging materials are also a great marketing tool. The logo, the shape, and the label of your food’s packaging should make your customers remember your brand the next time they visit the store. This way, it also builds recognition.
Tips on How to Design an Effective Packaging for Food Products
Know Your Brand Identity
Be it watching television or reading a magazine; your packaging will often be your customer’s point of communication with your brand. It is important to make a clear picture of who you are as a company. While coming up with a food packaging design, you have to be clear about your brand identity.
You need to ask yourself, “What is my product? and How is it different from similar products that are available on the market? Who is my potential target audience? What is my company’s philosophy?” The answers to these questions will reveal whether your food packaging is consistent with your brand identity and guides you to choose the packaging color, size, shape, and materials. Also, make sure your brand message is strongly and clearly conveyed through the use of your company name, design, and logo.
Form and Function
The job of a food packaging designer is to balance the shelf appeal with the functional aspect of a product’s safety and protection. On the functional side, it is also critical that the product you ship to a consumer, distributor, or retailer must have the product in the same condition as it was while it left the warehouse or factory. Grocery retailers also send an invoice or a bill or deduct money from the invoice based on the cost of damage.
Food packaging should guide the audience regarding the features of a product and also its advantage over the others in the market in an easily understandable way. You just have a fraction of a second to gain your consumer’s attention amidst other products that you are competing with.
Also, the food and drug administration has special food labeling guides that instruct numerous aspects of food packaging design from a functional standpoint.
Materials and Design Drive Costs
Your packaging can also be considered as an important element of a successful product launch. This can easily add up to your production costs, so you need to flexible enough to consider some alternative options that will be eye-catching and functional.
The key cost drivers for packaging include
Materials
Even though you have been doing a good job in designing eye-catching grocery bags or any other glass jars pouches or any other packaging items, the trends keep changing. Traditional packaging materials like plastic aluminum or paper board has been replaced with different types of innovative and eco-friendly packaging materials.
Design
After the development process is complete and your specification is set, 80% of the costs get embedded, which means 20% happen in manufacturing. Therefore, the design and development phase offers us an opportunity to save. With your due intelligence, conduct smart interviews and select the ones that you feel would be a good fit.
Printing, production, and labor
It is possible to do trade-offs between production cost between labor and production expenses, but you must know the implication of possible trade-offs in your time and efforts and the look of your package design.
Long term savings
If you are moving from hand wraps to automated food wraps, there will be a significant capital cost to buy an automatic wrapping machine, but also the labor costs get cut down in the long run. Your retailers would have to purchase more due to the perfect, consistent look of packages.
The latest trends in food packaging products
It’s highly important to know the recent trends that have emerged in food packaging as the industry has great competition and is dynamic. You can give your products a chic transformation by applying these trends into your packaging.
Minimal Designs
This trend is present everywhere, from books and magazine covers to signage. It’s time to take a break from those big typefaces and cluttered designs.
Bold colors
They are the vogue of food packaging. More than just attracting customer attention, they also go well with your design layout. Protein bars can be taken as the finest example of this trend.
Print comes big
Try listing your ingredients in big fonts. This will look good and, at the same time, show your credibility to your customers. Having a piece of great knowledge about food packaging trends can help manufacturers ensure they have the best branding and design for the food products
Get creative with shapes
How about selling your cookies in a box-shaped like cookies or milk products in a carton that resembles dairy or cows. Many food manufacturing companies are getting the creative edge through their packaging. A flamboyant user experience in packaging is what drives sales.
Functional Packaging
Recently, Dunkin Donuts came up with a coffee cup that is designed flexibly and aesthetically to carry sugar and cream along with extra coffee if needed. There are plenty of organizations that are using this trend to let their customers carry food easily.
The conclusion is that every food product needs attractive food packaging to get into the market. However, it is also equally important to choose the right kind of food packaging. After all, packaging not only protects the food but also builds brand recognition.
What is the bottom line?
A product’s packaging design should compulsorily reflect the brand image of the company which came up with it, there is no exception for food packaging product. So, make sure you choose the food packaging that appeals to your target audience. Make sure your brand’s packaging design doesn’t deviate too much from the universally-recognized norms, yet your brand should be able to differentiate itself from others. The way a product is presented can be considered a determining factor for sales of your brand over others. This is the method to influence your customer purchase in many ways.
Even tiny information like that the color of certain elements of the food packages can make or break the purchase. The key is to do efficient research on your target markets and identify what your prospective customers want or have a problem with.
Packaging especially in the food industry has certain specifications that require forethought in order to prevent the foods from being spoiled before reaching the customer. Keep all these factors in mind and incorporate ample creativity in your design that can attract your target market and have a positive impact.
Handover your food package design needs to All Time Design and boost your brand identity with ease. With all the necessary background research needed about your company, we can come up with stunning designs that make you want to hire us for all your design projects. We not only help you build your brand but also makes you trustable among your consumers. Check out our website to know more about us or contact us now to try our free demo. You can also find some unique ideas for product packaging designs.
