Requirements and Procedures for Packaging Design
(I) Requirements for Food Packaging Design
Before designing the packaging, it is essential to fully understand the product characteristics, examine them from various angles, and comprehensively analyze various factors to design reasonable packaging that meets the product requirements.
1. Protecting the Food
How well does the packaging protect and preserve the inner contents? Is the packaging structure design reasonable, innovative, and exquisite? Are the packaging materials appropriate and safe for food? Can the packaging reduce the possibility of tampering?
2. Convenient for Storage, Transportation, and Use
Can the packaging facilitate storage, transportation, shelf display, and save storage space? Will it be damaged under normal storage and transportation conditions (see Figure 23)?
Is it easy to open, reseal, and remove the contents, and can the correct amount be easily measured out? Do the size and capacity of individual packages conform to ergonomic principles, meet consumer needs, and are they easy to carry?
Is the packaging size suitable for storage in refrigerators, cupboards, or food cabinets? Can the used packaging be reused?
3. Conducive to Promotion
Can the design positioning accurately reflect the product’s characteristics and sales strategy? How competitive is it compared to other similar products? How does the packaging material, shape, size, color, and design differ from competitors?
Is the packaging shape and size suitable for mass display? Is it attractive enough when displayed alone? Is the product information sufficient? Is the price reasonable?
Does each side of the packaging need to convey product information? Are all the required information by regulations labeled (including barcodes, QS certification, etc.)?
Is the text concise and easy to understand? Can the decorative illustrations attract customers’ interest? Is there a need for auxiliary display items, POP packaging, or display packaging?
4. Aesthetically Pleasing and Exquisitely Made
Is the structural design innovative? Is the decorative styling beautiful, generous, and with appropriate regional characteristics? Can it draw attention and stimulate the desire to purchase?
Can the packaging samples realize the design intent? Is the combination of processing technology and printing level with the design well-executed?
5. Packaging Standardization and Industrialization
Can the standardization and industrialization of the designed packaging adapt to the development of new processes, materials, and technologies? Can it save raw materials, reduce manufacturing costs and transportation expenses?
6. Conducive to Environmental Protection
The packaging design should reflect the characteristics of “green packaging,” such as saving raw materials, reusing, and protecting the environment.
(II) Packaging Design Procedures
The procedures and steps of packaging design reflect the scientific and systematic rational characteristics of modern design, which are one of the key factors in mastering the correct design methods and achieving effective design results.
The basic procedures for packaging design generally include the following aspects.
1. Proposing Requirements
Regardless of whether the enterprise designs it itself or entrusts a design unit to design it, they should give the reason for the design and provide relevant information. The reasons for designing packaging generally include:
developing new products, expanding new markets, coordinating with new sales strategies to improve packaging;
- adopting new technologies, equipment, structures, materials, or changes in laws and policies that require new packaging designs;
- competitors’ packaging outperforms one’s own and needs to change the corporate image;
- competitors develop similar new products, etc., requiring packaging improvements;
- forming serialized packaging, etc.,
- requiring redesign of packaging.
The basic relevant information that the manufacturer should provide includes the overall concept of product development (such as development motivation, market opportunity points, etc.), basic description of target consumers (such as age, gender, occupation, hobbies, etc.), product description (such as characteristics, uses, cost, price, etc.).
2. Planning
(1) Investigation and Analysis
Conduct investigations on society and the market, using various means to collect relevant text, pictures, physical objects, and other materials during the investigation.
Then, gather the collected materials and conduct a comprehensive analysis to study the product’s development trends, the manufacturer’s sales strategies, sales forms, sales channels, analyze the target consumer situation, and investigate competitors’ packaging and strategies.
(2) Analysis and Setting of Packaging Requirements and Conditions
Based on the product development strategy and market conditions, analyze and demonstrate the product conditions, environmental conditions, market conditions, production process conditions, target consumer situation, and economic costs, and set them to concretize the packaging requirements, conditions, and related factors, forming specific goals, standards, scope, requirements, etc., and determining the packaging entry point and design strategy.
At the same time, draft a packaging design and production plan and work schedule.
3. Design
(1) Creativity and Conception
Specifically discuss from the aspects of ease of use (structure, use, overall display), protection, safety, rationality (including materials, manufacturing and processing, cost), visual communication (such as appearance styling, color, graphics, text, logo, product characteristics, visual impact, associative meaning, etc.) and environmental protection, etc., to conceive and consider multiple schemes for packaging, and express them in the form of sketches.
(2) Determining the Design Scheme
Select some good design schemes from the sketches, draw renderings or make animations, and jointly study with the client (manufacturer or the planning and marketing department of the enterprise) and other relevant departments to select 1-3 schemes for specific refinement.
(3) Determining the Packaging Form and Its Combination Relationship
According to the packaging strategy and function, determine the use of serialized, matching, portable, hanging, display, stacking and other packaging forms.
According to the requirements of the goods, determine the volume and size of the packaging and the quantity and combination relationship of individual packaging, inner packaging, and outer packaging, and design parameters, striving to make the sales packaging specifications and dimensions match the internal dimensions of the transportation packaging.
(4) Selecting Packaging Materials and Auxiliary Materials
Standard materials and green materials should be preferentially selected, with appropriate costs, and able to meet the protection, safety and use requirements of the product, and have good printing and production performance.
(5) Selecting Packaging Technology and Methods
According to the requirements of the goods, determine the main technical parameters and select appropriate packaging technologies and methods (such as vacuum, gas-filled, aseptic, anti-counterfeiting, shock-proof and other packaging techniques).
(6) Designing the Structure, Shape, and Decoration of the Packaging
Under the premise of unified consideration of packaging structure, shape, and decoration design, the basic shape is generally determined first, and then the structure is designed.
Starting from scientific principles, based on the performance characteristics of packaging materials, the forming methods of packaging containers, and the structural requirements of various parts of packaging containers, specific design of packaging structure is carried out.
The shape and structure of paper boxes are inseparable, but the convenience, production efficiency, and cost of realizing the same packaging shape with different structures are quite different. Finally, the decorative design is carried out.
Packaging is three-dimensional, so it is necessary to have a three-dimensional concept when designing, and pay attention to the relationship between several display surfaces. While making the individual packaging plan, the inner and outer packaging should also be designed in the same series style.
4. Making Sample Packaging
According to the selected design scheme, make one or several sample packages (box samples, container models) of the same size as the actual product, and scientifically test the samples according to relevant requirements or standards.
And compare the sample packaging with the original and competitors’ packaging to study from the aspects of scientificity, salability, and aesthetics, and select the best scheme.
5. Determining the Process and Making the Final Design
Determine the packaging printing process, production process, printing and processing process and other process schemes, and make detailed final designs according to national drawing standards and printing design requirements.
6. Production
Strictly follow the design requirements for production, and try to adapt to industrialized and standardized production as much as possible.
7. Evaluation and Appraisal
When the designed packaging is produced, it should be tested and appraised, and market research should be conducted to evaluate whether it meets the pre-set requirements, and finally revised and finalized.
Finally, it should also be decided whether to apply for a design patent according to needs, to prevent unscrupulous merchants from maliciously counterfeiting.
Packaging design following standard procedures is relatively easy to ensure that the design develops in the right direction, reduces blindness and individual arbitrariness, enhances the scientificity, orderliness, and controllability of the design, and reduces mistakes in design work.
However, this is not an unchanging set of rules and frameworks. The design process is not linear, but cyclical and ascending, and varies according to the size of the design project, the design direction and objectives. Appropriate adjustments should be made according to the actual situation.
