Package Composition


When working with 3D designs, a designer has both the benefit and the challenge of using many surfaces to communicate. A standard rectangular carton has six sides, each of which is your responsibility. Approach this with care, because the placement of information and graphic elements is essential to your carton's visibility and branding. Let's discover how.

Visibility

The store shelf is a crowded and competitive place, and you must always remember that when coming up with a new design. A too-modest package can easily be overshadowed by its neighbors.

There's one way to prevent this: Research! The simple secret to standing out is to conduct thorough research into competitors of your package. Take a trip to the store and see how competitive brands have addressed the composition of their packages. What design elements have the designers used, and how strong is their counter animation?

Take note of what works and what doesn't, then design something better than (not similar to!) what you've seen. You are creating a design that will lead your customer to your product, not to its competitor.

Figure 10.12. For a brand breakout, look no further than this award-winning Mrs. Meyers cleaning kit design from Werner Works Design. A no-fuss, no-frills product is given serious distinction through some great copy, retro illustrations, and fantastic attention to detail.


How do you decide what information goes on which panels? Primary information stands out and identifies the product. Secondary information, such as ingredients and instructions, can be less prominent and visible. In most cases, any decisions about the placement of information will have already been made by the client prior to your meeting. The client will provide not just the text you need but also any legal specifications on its size and appearance. If the client doesn't give you this information initially, you must ask. Sometimes the client will be flexible and give you some leeway as to where it goesa design opportunity for you.

tip

It sounds obvious, but you need to figure out any informational or legal constraints at the outset of your project.


It is also important to consider how your packaging looks when it viewed in isolation. A shopping bag, for example, must work as a stand-alone piece because it is intended to be carried out of the store by a customer. When it stands alone, it must clearly advertise the product or store. To do this, the information must be prominent and visible at a glance. Out on the street, passersby will get only the briefest glimpse of the name of the store, product, or designer (oooh, Prada), so the graphics should reinforce an already established look.

Once again, it is generally the client who will dictate how prominently the secondary information should appear. I'm sure you've seen store addresses printed in the bag gusset or artfully placed beneath the store name. Secondary information can be displayed in subtle ways to reward the curious.

Consistency

Print and packaging designs created for a particular product or store must observe an ever so important design principle: consistency. Otherwise, the marketing opportunity created by recognition and repetition is wasted.

If you stack up items from any good product line, you will see that while the different products vary in shape, they will be consistent within the product line in terms of logo size, spacing, fonts, and so on. They will also be internally consistent: using the same fonts, colors, and other elements on all sides of the package to create an appearance of cohesion.

Figure 10.13. In this Maxwell's Apothecary line, many careful adjustments to the positioning of elements (but not their size and proportion) were required to impart visual consistency.


Here are some basic rules to keep your designs consistent within a product line:

  • Use the exact logo and/or product logo called for by the client (it's branding, remember?).

  • Use the same size of logo. Where this becomes impossible, make it visually feel the same based on the spatial relationships with your other elements.

  • Keep your spatial relationships consistent. The placement of the logo, the measure of where the copy begins after the logo, where the weight claims sit, and so on should be consistent across products.

  • Align your graphics as precisely as you can. Where this is impossible, make it visually appear to align. This will happen automatically if you keep your spacing consistent.

  • Keep your graphics reading in the same direction (generally left to right or top to bottom).

  • Maintain your color palette.

  • Use the same fonts.




Sessions. edu Graphic Design Portfolio-Builder(c) Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator Projects
Graphic Design Portfolio-Builder: Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator Projects
ISBN: 0321336585
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2005
Pages: 103
Authors: Sessions.edu

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