Ensuring Your Brand Identity: What is Packaging Design?

Your brand identity is extremely important if you want to make a significant and lasting impression on your consumers. Maintaining your brand identity and ethos in everything you do is what is going to help customers to trust your brand and better understand what you do and what you stand for.

There are many key elements that go into creating a suitable brand identity (and sticking with it), and one of these is product packaging design.

Many companies may be asking what is packaging design in terms of my brand identity, and do I need to bother with it? The answer is yes, absolutely. Packaging design may not be something your consumer is going to use directly, but the packaging is still a part of the entire brand experience.

Exploring your packaging design is going to be key for making the right brand impression on your consumers. Not only should you understand the many packaging options out there, but also how you can best choose packaging to suit your brand, and which packaging is most suitable for the type of goods you’re providing.

Packaging design for businesses can be a fun avenue to explore during the design process. It’s a chance to better show off your brand and have another opportunity to show off your brand message.

What is Packaging Design? Breaking it Down

There are many levels to packaging design and many things to consider. Some of these will be design elements, and some will be practical solutions. Here are the key areas you’ll need to consider when exploring what packaging design to use for your brand.

Type of Packaging

The packaging industry has an abundant amount of options when it comes to packaging for company products. Cardboard boxes, plastic bags, steel packaging, tissue paper, bubble wrap, sustainably sourced materials — these are just some of the wide range of packaging materials available to brands considering how to pack their product and how to label their product.

What’s important to remember when thinking about your design is that not all materials will be effective packaging for your particular brand.

Packaging materials are practical choices for ensuring the protection and delivery of your product, and also the materials used to directly house your product — but they are so much more than that. You can’t choose any old material and deliver a plain box to your customer if you’re trying to stick to your brand message and further advertise your brand.

Therefore, it’s important when considering which packaging material to choose to combine both how your product needs to be protected and what your company values are.

For example, if you have a fragile product, you’re naturally going to need a protective layer like bubble wrap and a secure packaging system. However, if you’re a brand which advertises how sustainable it is and how it’s always trying to help the environment, then you’re going to want to choose sustainable packaging over plastic or anything which can’t be recycled — otherwise, you’re going against your brand values, and consumers will see that (and this could affect the future of them buying the product).

The important thing to remember is to consider packaging opinions of the time; packaging in the 20th Century, for example, would have had a lot less focus on sustainability. This modern age is now more eco-conscious and more aware of waste materials, so brands and companies must think about that.

When thinking about your packaging design, consider which packaging materials would best represent the brand and elevate the experience your customers have with it.

Image source: https://www.packedonline.com/

Design of Packaging

As well as the practical side of things, you then need to think about incorporating your brand's identity system into the packaging. Good graphic design is going to be essential for effective package designs which show off your brand aesthetics as they align with the company's brand guidelines.

As a crucial starting point when dealing with packaging design, your packaging should always include your company name and logo, while maintaining visual consistency. When you create packaging, you can then build on this with other design elements — do you want the packaging to be the same color as your brand colors? Do you want particular typography on the wrapping or box? Would you benefit from a brand designer who can put all your key design elements into your packaging?

Packaging Labels

Labels for your shipments and the product itself can be for different purposes; it could be the shipping address label, a general label, or your primary brand label on the item. Including these is encouraged. When planning product label design for your packaging, it should be a clear label that advertises your brand and matches your key brand aesthetic.

The labels themselves should also consider other important features, such as size and sustainability. Remember, customers notice the key things, and many won’t be afraid to call you out in public.

Image source: Sticker Mule

Including Key Information About the Product

When you have packaging for your product, you need to make sure it has all the relevant information for your consumers. This is particularly important for food products, as you will need a product label that outlines ingredients, allergy information, and expiry dates.

This information should still be provided in a way that is true for your brand, however. If your brand is fun and quirky, you may want to write the core information in a fun way, too, rather than a small print list of extensive ingredients.

Looking for packaging design services can help you to best understand how to design product labels and packaging which works.

Considering the Product in Relation to Packaging

If you have perishable goods, you have to think even more about the packaging design. You will need adequate food packaging for food products in order to maintain its integrity and safe delivery.

Packaging Design with the Experts at Anthem Branding

We’re always here to help you find the best packaging design and ensure that you have packaging that best reflects your brand. Our services provide a great packaging solution to your needs, no matter the product, so get in touch with us today.