Design your way

The average supermarket contains approximately 40,000 different items (according to the Food Marketing Institute).

From farmers and ranchers to truck drivers and stockers, there are a lot people involved in the food industry.

An often overlooked parts of this $600 billion dollar industry are graphic designers.

That’s right. Graphic designers are a vital part of the food industry. Hundreds of designers and graphic artists work to strengthen brands through their unique food packaging ideas.

Packing is more than just protection for food. It is also meant to attract consumers and make them want to buy the product. Packaging is vital to branding, creating a look that communicates tasty, healthy, and reliable brand. Here are some ideas to help you figure out how to design packaging that helps sell a product in the supermarket.

Branding Identity

Packaging is usually how a customer recognizes your brand, even how they first see it. Good packing starts with a clear idea of your brand and its identity.

Questions you should ask to help you get started with your food packing design:

• What are you selling?
• What makes it different?
• Who is your target customer?
• What is the company philosophy?

Answering these questions will give you a starting point. You need to make sure every aspect of your food package fits with that brand identity, including color, shape, size, and material. When launching new products, you need to make sure the food product packing lets customers know the company’s name, see their logo, and understand their brand’s philosophies and messages.

Form and Function

Good packaging is both appealing and fulfills its role protecting food safety and protection. Packaging that is unsanitary or easily broken will not work on the market, no matter how nice it looks.

Food needs to arrive to stores in the same condition that it leaves the warehouse or factory. It needs to stay sanitary and fresh while sitting on the shelf. Failing at either of these objectives can be costly, as retailers will deduct the cost of a damaged product from profits.

Food product packaging needs to make it obvious what the product’s benefits are. Shoppers take only a fraction of a second to decide on what product to buy. If it’s not obvious what sets your brand above the rest, all your work will mean nothing.

The Food and Drug Administration has created Food Labeling Guidelines that set out a lot of what health information that you need to make sure is on your packing design and how it should be formatting, as well as various packing requirements for safety and sanitation. Keep these in mind for as you create your design.

Ask these important questions as you design food packaging:

• What material will keep the product fresh as long as possible and provide the maximum level of protection?
• Is a rigid container of a flexible one better for your product?
• How much space is required for messaging?
• Will either the size or shape make it difficult to ship the product to retailers?
• What does the secondary packing and shipping cost to get the product to retailers?
• Will the product be stored before going on display?
• How long will the product be on the shelf before it’s bought?
• What are product’s benefits, ingredients, considerations, and brand identity?

Simplicity

When you next go to a supermarket, go to a shelf and take a look at all the different products. Briefly look at them (do not do this while hungry) and ask yourself two questions:

1. What is this product for?
2. What’s the brand?

It can be amazingly hard to answer these simple core questions in a matter of seconds. However, that’s all your product will have when it’s on the shelf to answer them.

A lot of products give a list of benefits with no brand on them. Sometimes cleaning products will have the kind of packaging meant for kid’s juices. Other products will have very nice and well-designed packing, but you’ll be stumped as to what they actually do.

Product packing needs to convey its identity and benefits very quickly in a very short amount of time. Failing to show the content, brand, or usage of an item is a kind of design failure. Packing like that tends not to do well in stores. Always be clear about the brand and the product and you can’t go wrong.

Be Honest

Many beginners in design try to make their product to look like some kind of miracle, always presenting it in the best light possible, often impossibly so. They’ll display the freshet or most decadent images imaginable on their labels, when the product is in fact a bit more mundane. For instance, a label could feature fresh sliced warm roast beef, when the package really just contains regular processed lunch meat.

Showing a product this way is misleading. The consumer will be disappointed not just with that product, but very possibly with the entire brand. They may never buy a brand that gives them such a false image again.

Consumers have no problems with simple cheap products, as long as the product is honest about itself. Everyone understands that products will put the best foot forward, perhaps doing some cosmetic “face-lifting”, but making a product look like something totally different betrays consumer trust.

No one enjoys feeling like they’ve been duped. Designers need to be both positive and honest with their food packing designs, understanding that customers deserve to be treated with respect.

FDA Requirements

Packing that does not comply with the FDA regulations for food labeling will never be used. The requirements include listing nutrition claims, the ingredients list, and adding a nutrition fact panel. You need to make sure your design complies with these rules.

Alpine packaging (alpinepackaging.com) can help you out, if you’re looking for it. They are industry leaders, and are more than happy to make your product stand out from the rest.

Sustainability

For both business and ethical reasons, it’s important to design packaging with sustainability in mind. The increasingly eco-minded consumers of today’s society take notice and tend to have good impressions of products with sustainable packaging. Recyclable packaging helps everyone, since you live in the world, too.

There are a lot of companies whose branding includes the production of natural and organic products, so sustainable packaging helps communicate their identity and ethos very well. It’s another consideration to have when you are creating your design.

Packaging design tips to take into consideration:

Gather all the information you need

Try not start the creative phase of your design process until you have all the necessary information. Get the nutritional info, ingredients list, and barcodes before you begin, so you know what you’re working with. You can make sure they’re integrated before you get too far along in the design process.

Research the competition

You need to make the product stand out, so you need to find out what other products of the same type are doing with their packaging designs. Your product will probably be sitting right next to them on the shelf. What’s working for them? What’s their message? Look them up on the web or go to the store to take a look.

Be different

Try something new for your product. If everyone else is sticking to the same old formula, see if you can design your packaging to stand out. Try different colors, different materials, and different fonts.

Shelf impact

Shoppers never see products in very much detail or alone. Everything is arranged in varying patterns of columns and rows, and it’s not until people see an interesting one that they end up taking a closer look. The distinctive appeal of a product on the shelf is called, somewhat predictably, “shelf impact”.

Shelf impact is very important and ends to be something you test for with your designs. Surround your product with others on a shelf. See how it looks, if it stands out. The more distinctive and eye catching, the better. What seems like a good design may just fade into the rest, while simplistic ones make become very striking.

Extensibility

Packaging design should allow for product variations or sub-brands. You packaging should allow for some flexibility and not be too strictly designed around one particular product. Think of all the variations of Oreos! They all share a coherent packaging design that also conveys their unique kinds of tastes.

Avoid this by thinking ahead as you create your design. Packaging should be designed somewhat systematically, so common themes and relevant branding messages can be swapped onto new products.

Practicality

Practicality is all about the size, shape, and functionality of a product container. Products with more practicality get more sales. Something as simple as turning a bottle (well, really, the label) upside down for more and longer ease of use can make a big impact in sales.

Many people overlook practicality in packaging designs, since consumers can be wary of changes, even simple ones. However, practicality can solve a lot of design issues, and could possibly create the next innovation in package design.

Summary

These are some initial packaging tips for your design. As you work through your design process, keep them in mind while developing your food packaging ideas. Take a look at your own supermarket, at the products that you buy, and note how they’ve integrated these principles into their design.

Food packaging showcase

I know you are bored by the old and common food package designs made by antique standards.

Young designers figured that out too and tried to make product packaging somehow different, combining colors in an interesting way and creating interesting concepts that would attract the everyday costumer. I believe they’ve succeeded in doing that with brio.

Wanted Snacks

Doritos Concept

PanPan

Farmetone

What On Earth

Level Ground Trading

The Deli Garage Mehrzwecknudeln

Marks & Spencer Swiss Biscuits

Eggshell Puddings

Honeycomb

Fun & Fit Muesli

Michelussi Italian Gourmet Food

Delights of Sweden

Dymov Ultra

Kmotr Salami

Pizza Nova

Mekong Red Dragon Rice

Calpis

Popchips

Princip

Hairy Bikers

Ling Lee

Yarmarka Platinum

Probar Fruition

Coureur des Bois

Gelo

Oloves

1854 Hierbas y Especias

Azita’s Dry Rub

SosoFactory

Kashi Lean Cereal Concept

Organic Honey

Pasta Packaging

Clearspring

Lovenskiold

1000 Paladares

Meaty Packaging

The Deli Garage Schokoleim

Meringue

Raw Health

The Fresh Pasta Company

Jan Robben

Lintar Olive Oil

Bear Baked Nibbles

Mini Garage Winery Olivenöl

Uncle Statis Frozen Herbs

A.O.

Pure Bake Shop

Urban Fruit

Bjorklund

Waitrose Soup

Pop-Up Popcorn

Migros

TrueCoffee Hot Dog

Tofu

Babees Honey

Azita’s Almost-All-American Hot Sauce

Nupo

Clive’s Organic Dips

The Little Veggie Patch Co

Moses Delivery

The Kitchen

Spork

Hervik

Könecke Advent Sausage

Porkinson

Clive’s Pot of

Hellers

Justin’s Nut Butter

Gallo

Popfish

M&S Biscuits

Green Eggs

REAL Chips

ICA Kaviar

Brie Bistro

Fixa

Sivaris Rice

Hendrick’s Cucumber Crates

Via Roma

Gran Farina

Blue Ribbon

Womo

From Our Farms

Andreas Caminada

El Mil del Poaig

Kefalonia Fisheries

Brooklyn Fare

APC Olive Oil

DeliShop

Kshocolat

Brachia Olive Oil

Nut Butter

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