Colour speaks to your audience

- Why colour is so important for packaging surface design? 
- How to choose appropriate colour in packaging surface design and to communicate specific meaning to  your audience?

Sarah & Candace pointed out that people often convey their emotional state with the metaphorical use of color, which means different colour can evoke different emotion responds. For example, Red is enthusiastic, full energy, dynamic and exciting colour, or conversely red represents fear and danger. Blue symbolizes power, loyalty, peaceful and calming, but less use in food packaging, because it suppresses appetites.

Therefore, colour is one of the reasons to influence consumer purchase. In accordance with the product category designer select appropriate colour for packaging design.


There are three approaches for choosing appropriate colour in packaging surface design.


Approach 1. Keep target audience in mind
Approach 2. Determine the purpose of your product and what message you want the
            packaging to convey to your audience.
Approach 3. Make the use of colour characteristic to grab audience attention so that
            product can stand out from the crowd.

------------------------------  
 

Approach 1. Keep target audience in mind

Keeping target audience in mind is so important for designers, because different kinds of consumer respond to distinguish lifestyle, habit, and visual language. Age, gender, economic status, and education level need to be taken into consideration when designing.

Eg. Teenagers and young adult - > bright, and more sophisticated and complex colours.

Eg. Younger teenager girls -> varying shades of purple and pink .

Approach 2.

Determine the purpose of your product and what message you want the packaging to convey to your audience.

There are different product messages, such as luxury, professional, health, ecofriendly, energetic, and elegance, etc.. Designers should make sure the use of colour in packaging design to send the right message.

Approach 3. 

Make the use of colour characteristic to grab audience attention so that product can stand out from the crowd. 

Sarah & Candace pointed out that there is a way to grab attention by using very rich colour, and through bold colour to increase the visual excitement. The packaging is intended to make the product stand-out through bold use of colour, as well as traditional Indian patterns to grab attention.

Sometimes the most-effective packs are the most simple. Multiple colours on a pack can be both distracting to the customer and costly to produce. (Design Council, 2011) Therefore, keep the colour simple and monotone, such as black and white, or leave a lot of space to make consumer focus on what is the message it want to communicate.



Therefore, colour is a powerful design tool that influences the consumer’s response to a package and the product it contains. Through using appropriate colour to convey product message and influence consumer’s purchase decision.