Inside Design: Tips for Creating Captivating Packages
Design consultant Ellen Caruso specializes in packaging for skin-care, hair-care, and specialty bath brands. Her résumé includes 15 years of experience as senior design manager for Avon Products Inc. She can be reached via e-mail at elcaruso@ optonline.net. * What we as designers can do to keep consumers interested.
By Ellen CarusoStroll through a boutique, a department store, or a mass-market outlet, and sure enough, a certain cosmetic, fragrance, or personal care product will stand out. What qualities make this item so attractive to consumers? Perhaps its use of color or a feeling of nostalgia it inspires makes the package appealing. Or maybe a comforting simplicity sets the package apart in a product category otherwise cluttered with busy designs. Whatever the reasons (and they are many), standout packages make for successful products that don't collect dust on the shelf. They, like the products discussed in this article, are designs that get all the right looks.
Take Them by Surprise
One way to get consumers' attention is to surprise them. An unusually shaped package whose structure, dimensions, and proportions stand apart from others in its category can do this. A bold color scheme also has the power to catch consumers' eyes.
Such is the case with Versus Versace fragrances for women by Gianni Versace. The squarish glass bottles for the three fragrances—Energy, Relax, and Pleasure—are vibrantly colored blue, green, and magenta, respectively. The colors are inspired by the freshness of Versace's ready-to-wear collections. Adding to the fragrances' appeal are fashion accessories: a gold chain and an embossed tag. Such details make the packages examples of cosmopolitan design brought to fragrance.
Graphics can also provide an element of surprise. Sweeping brushstrokes can be attention-getters. Also provocative are unconventional graphic styles, such as those used on the packaging for Givenchy Oblique, to create a techno look and feel.
Make Them Smile
If your design makes your target customer smile, then you've probably achieved a perfect blend of subtle design elements.
A good example of this is the packaging for fragrance Shiseido Zen. The bottle, designed by Tetsuo Togazawa, resembles two hands clasped together, palm to palm. The bottle—white with simple graphics—conveys an image of balance, of transparency, light, and purity.
"A global success, Zen is designed to evoke Japanese beauty through its name, its package, and its fragrance," says Nicole Cardillo, public relations coordinator for Shiseido Prestige Brands. "A modern [interpretation] of Zen, the fragrance features the latest technology in aromachology, while presenting a beautiful, mesmerizing design," says Cardillo.
Designers can also make consumers smile by incorporating distinctive elements, such as the mirrors in Givenchy's organically shaped makeup line, or the rings on the wands of Hard Candy's nail polish packages.
Color, too, can serve as a distinguishing detail, making a package worth smiling about. Issey Miyake's L'Eau D'Issey is an example. The soft colors that refract from the base of the glass cone-shaped bottle call for a closer look.
Bring It Back
Who says something old can't be fresh and exciting? Try reintroducing something old in a contemporary way and make it new again. Perhaps you use the same old components but render them colorless, such as the clear components that enable consumers to see the inner workings of a package. Or maybe you update aluminum components with unique finishes, shapes, or other decorative possibilities.
The package designs for the Shu Uemura cosmetic line take such an approach. Familiar-looking compacts, for example, are made fresh by the use of translucent materials with matte satiny finishes. The fact that consumers can see the product formulations through the packaging adds another key aspect to the overall design.
In addition to making something old new again, designers can borrow packaging components from other industries. Salt Rub Smoothing Body Scrub from Origins, for instance, originally came in a glass apothecary jar that was later retooled into PET.
Similarly, the classic milk bottle translates well into packages for personal care products by Fresh Inc. Alina Roytberg, cofounder and creative director for Fresh, says that glass bottles for the Milk Bath and Milk Body Lotion were created from custom molds. "We didn't want [to make] an obvious reference to the [old-fashioned] milk bottle, but rather a slightly subjective version of it, in the Fresh context." Seeing a familiar design, such as the milk bottle, in a new context can give consumers a favorable comfortability with a product, Roytberg says.
Get (and Keep) Their Attention
Surprise your potential customers. Give them something to smile about. Show them something old in a new light. These are just a few of the things that designers can do to create successful cosmetics, fragrances, and personal care products, like the ones discussed here.
Whatever your approach to package design, one thing is certain: It should create an end-result that not only makes consumers stop and take notice, but also is memorable enough that they'll keep watch for your company's next product.