Your product packaging design is about more than just protecting your products during transit. It also impacts the sensual experience you provide for your customers and needs to be practical for your target market. You mustn’t overlook the power of packaging materials as part of your brand story and experience. 

So, when you’re choosing the types of packaging materials to use it’s vital to think about your brand’s story and how to reflect it in your packaging design. (Luckily, our expert design team has more than a dash of experience creating remarkable packaging!)

 

Think about your customer

Any creative process in business is exciting. Who doesn’t love breaking out the coloured markers and having an epic brainstorm session?!?

It’s easy to get carried away thinking about all the cool ways you could package your product. But the first step to a successful product design is to put what you want aside. Sorry, it’s not about you — yet. Instead, you need to consider your customers and what they need from your packaging.

 

1. Who’s buying it? If you’re selling toys to school kids, you need a product design that’s appealing to both adults and kids. It needs to appeal to the seven-year-old who’s saved all their pocket money for this one purchase. But also to the Aunty who doesn’t know what to buy her nephew. If it’s a product for people with vision impairment, you’ll need extra room for large, easy to read fonts. So, take some time to get curious about the types of customers who will pick your product off the shelf and what they’ll need to make it an easy choice.
   
   
2. Where are they buying it from? For online stores, the packaging needs to be tight without making it impossible to unpack. But for brick-and-mortar stores, you can allow a little more room in the box to make it stand out from your competitors.
   
   
3. How will it be getting to them? If your product is fragile, think about how you’ll transport it. You might need functional packaging materials that protect it during transit. Or, maybe it’ll be all tucked up and cosey inside a protective carton, like the way we snuggle up tight in bed on a chilly winter morning. If it’s a large or heavy product, how will you move it? Does it need a heavy-duty outer layer to weather transportation on a trolley?
   
   
4. What do they want to know? Along with listing the ingredients and adding your brand name, your customers also want to know where you make the product. Depending on who you’re selling to, they might like to know if it’s eco-friendly, cruelty-free or made by hand.
   
   

Living in a material world

After doing a little customer research, it’s time for the fun part – choosing the packaging materials. Like the way you touch the fabric of an expensive suit, your customers will let their fingers explore your packaging. So, choosing the right material to reflect your brand is a vital step in creating a memorable unboxing experience.

From fabric to stone paper, there are so many options available. For some brands, the choice will be obvious, an eco-friendly yoga wear brand won’t be using loads of plastic wrapping, they’ll want environmentally friendly options to choose from. For other brands, the best way to narrow it down is to think about how you want people to perceive your brand.

Paper 

When it comes to paper it’s all about thickness. But unlike choosing how thick or thin cut you want your chips, the weight of your packaging paper involves a little more thought. 

A thicker paper has a more luxe appearance, like a business card. The weight is also dependent on what’s going to be inside. It needs to be able to bear the weight of the product without bending. 

Plus you need to consider what type of texture suits your brand - silky smooth, uncoated, luxury textures or a sensory texture? We’re using a grainy paper at the moment that feels like running your hand over a sandy shore. 

You’ll also want to think about what base tone suits your brand. Like paint colours, there are a variety of tones to choose from - warm whites, blue whites, bright whites, pearlescent whites. Or maybe your brand needs a solid pop of colour. When in doubt, our expert design team can make some rocking recommendations to get you started.

Fabric

Wrapping your product in fabric inspires such a strong tactile sensation it’s worth perusing the huge range of textures and finishes to choose from. 

With options ranging from natural type fibres to plastic meshes, there’s sure to be a fabric blend your customers will fancy. It’s best to keep in mind that any fabric is usually mounted to card or thick paper, so it’s typically thin and flexible.

Stone paper

If you’re looking for waterproof, grease-resistant and washable packaging materials, stone paper is ideal. The bonus of using this unique paper is that it can also be returned to calcium carbonate and essentially upcycled and recycled infinitely. Cue the cheers from eco-friendly brands. 

Let’s get started

As you can see, it’s not only possible to create custom packaging worthy of holding your product, it’s an exciting process.

Creating custom packaging ignites our mojo. So, if you need help figuring out what to put your product in, let our expert design team flex their creativity and find a solution that’s perfect for your brand.