Do something good for our earth! Sustainable packaging

In recent years there has been increased awareness of environmental issue in packaging design. Many companies have acknowledged that by putting the green awareness into practice is an important marketing strategy which can give the consumer a positive corporate image. Over the years, green packaging design has become a trend and brought significant impact on making the product environmentally friendly through choosing sustainable materials.

















According to Designing Sustainable Packaging (2009), the US Environment
Protection Agency suggests the following principles to create more sustainable
packaging systems.

- Eliminating toxic constituents
- Using less material
- Making packaging more reusable
- Using more recycled content
- Making packaging more readily recyclable



PCF (post-consumer fiber)

The Post-Consumer Fiber Paper Cup is made by recycled paper and helps Starbucks
serve products in an environmentally sustainable choice of packaging. The
higher the percentage of post-consumer fiber content, the more natural resources
can be reserved. According to UCLA Sustainability, every 40 cases of 100% post
consumer fiber paper saves the equivalent of the following:
• 24 trees 40 feet in height
• 7,000 gallons of water
• 4,100 kilowatt hours of electricity
• 60 pounds of air pollution

See more about sustainable packaging !!-->

SUSTAINABLE PRODUCT AND PACKAGING DESIGN FOUNDATIONS
EARTH DAY PACKAGING

Start your design journey from DEXIGNER !!

http://www.dexigner.com/



This website provides many wonderful design information and design categories.
























Take Packaging Design for example, there are different categories, such as Books , Companies, Designers, etc.. and this provides the ones who wants to explore the packaging design a good guidance.

This site also contains the newest contest information and related news for updating.

Make the best use of network resources

As a designer, you might hope to get some feedback from others point of view, and sometimes we can learn more from peers suggestion. Therefore, there are some good sources for designers to engage in, such as design forum, design news, design events. I listed some quite useful website as below !

1. You The Designer

You The Designer is a graphic design blog by two main designers built. The blog provides many information for designers to engage, such as design news, tips, trends, tutorials, resources, and much more!


2.  HOWDesign forums

The HOWDesign forums are a good strat for you to share your work and get feedback from other designers. And also you can obtain many resource from asking questions.



3.  Packaging News

Packaging News is just like the heart of the packaging supply chain. It provides abundant resources, including production, case study, packaging events, and design agency,etc..



4.  UCreative Forums

UCreative Forums is You the Designer’s official Graphic Design Forum. UC Forum is like social network for designers to share their opinions and their works, and discussion.

Case Study- Tropicana. What’s wrong with the new packaging?

Tropicana had changed its packaging for a while, but this changes  led Tropicana to a disaster – decrease sell and brand recognition. What’s wrong with the new packaging?

New Packaging

Matt Everson pointed out eight major failures of the Tropicana redesign, including labeling, information structure, tone of voice, typography, imagery, colour, brand speak, and affordances. In this case, I would mainly focus on imagery and colour, and explain why the new packaging cause the sell decrease.   

From Tropicana’s ads(#1), Brand Packaging report (#2),and Matt Everson’s comment (#3), we know that colour is so important for Tropicana orange juice, because orange colour can inspire the appetite.

#1

#2

#3

Source: http://www.prsresearch.com/fileUploads/insightArticles/What_Can_We_Learn_From_Tropicana_Brand_ Packaging_Aug_09.pdf
Source: http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/dl/ free/0070974284/605841/sample_ch03.pdf
Source: http://astuteo.com/desktop/articles/tropicana-redesign/

Besides, Tropicana’s target audience is Balanced Living, and they tend to like natural and fresh product, therefore, Tropicana need to convey the fresh and natural orange juice product message to their audience. Tropicana’s target audience care about the juice is original and natural or not, hence, Tropicana uses colour to focus attention on orange juice, and conveys juice’s 100% fresh through the orange imagery. 

However, the Tropicana redesign packaging ignored the importance of product information and did not keep target audience in mind so that the redesign packaging failed in marketing. Scott and Vincenzo noted that “In packaging, the shopper is closer to the purchase decision, so clear, direct and more literal communication about the purchase (branding, variant, key information, etc.) is critical.” 

Want to know more information ? Check !!!  
Eight Major Failures of the Tropicana Redesign 
Pepsi Takes the Tropic out of Tropicana

Imagery speaks to your audience

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

Designers have to make sure what information they want to convey through imagery. Marianne & Sandra also mentioned about applying imagery effectively in packaging design makes a strong visual impression. 

There are 6 approaches for the use of imagery in packaging design. 

Approach 1.  Keep target audience in mind

Approach 2.  Appetite appeal

Approach 3.  Create mood associations

Approach 4.  Create characters to enhance product personality

Approach 5.  Use signifier, such as icons and patterns to communicate product messages.

Approach 6.  Photography provides a chance to give consumer an imagination of the taste                of the food.

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Approach 1. Keep target audience in mind

Before starting design a packaging, designers need to know the target audience first, and collect visual landscape to know what images would relate to target audience.

>>> Take children for example, simple lines and images or cartoon is the main imagery of children packaging. The packaging with bright colour and illustration is obviously aimed at the children’s market.

Approach 2.  Appetite appeal

For food packaging, it is important to create appetite appeal and increase the desire to purchase.  The use of photography in food packaging can stimulate consumer taste bud, and increase purchase motivation.

Approach 3.  Create mood associations

Marianne & Sandra said that imagery can set a mood which is associated with audience. For example, Elsa’s Story uses the contrast between the black-and-white photography and the ‘hero’ product to evoke both nostalgia and appetite.

Approach 4.  Create characters to enhance product personality

Character can support brand communication, enhance product personality, as well as consumer would have the strong connection between product and character, and it makes product more easily recognized by consumer. 

>>> For example, The Pringles Crisp is well known and recognized by a character, with mustache and bow tie. Besides, brand confidence and loyalty can be tied into the image of a character.

Approach 5.  Use signifier, such as icons and patterns to communicate product messages.

For example, communicate luxurious by applying seamless floral or streamline ornamental patterns.






The designer of Non Stop Vodka uses numerous icons decorate the bottle and display the life-style of the vodka audience.



Approach 6.  Photography provides a chance to give consumer an imagination of the taste                of the food.


Sarah & Candace pointed out that photography can convey a real image and help consumer anticipate the taste or the texture of the product. 

As can be seen, illustration image could not display the taste of popsicle. But if designers choose an appropriate photography to stimulate the taste bud, it would be more credible.

Certainly, images are effective design tools to communicate with audience about the product message. Imagery is a way of the brand forming a relationship with the customer. For example, to appeal to consumers who concern environmental issue, designers may design the products packaging in environmentally friendly ways.

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.

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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.

Why not starting from visiting good websites?

Here are some useful websites for designers to visit and those provide worthy information.
1.     http://justcreative.com/

2.  http://lovelypackage.com/

3.  http://www.thedieline.com/

4.  http://www.smashingmagazine.com/

5.   http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/