Tasty Packaging within the Food Industry
In a world where visual information is key, it’s important that food companies sell their products in well designed, aesthetically pleasing packaging. But what makes a piece of packaging successful?
There are so many elements that designers have got to consider when designing packaging for food companies. Not only do they have to consider things such as the brand identity and the ever-changing design trends, but a lot of thought should go into the target audience’s wants and needs, considering how their designs can make them feel and have an impact on the decisions that they make. An increase of public awareness about issues big and small, from healthy eating to the impact we have on the environment, has led to a change in people’s lifestyle choices. Consumers want to shop conscientiously by buying healthy, responsibly sourced products in sustainable packaging. Therefore, food companies must respond and reconsider not only the material of their packaging but the design and how it can visually tell consumers that their products are good for them and the environment.
The importance of good packaging design within the food sector should never be underestimated. From my own survey a huge 71% of people said that they would choose an item based on its packaging, showing that investing in good design can boost sales and make a company successful. This is because, if the quality of the packaging is good, the customer will assume the quality of the product is good. Logically thinking, a company wouldn’t invest a lot of money into making a product and put it in cheap, poorly designed packaging. Likewise, if a company made cheap, poor quality items, they wouldn’t spend lots of money on amazing packaging that costs more than the item itself. According to research by marketing specialists, WebpageFX, consumers make a subconscious judgement about a product in less than 90 seconds of viewing it (Clark, 2016), which shows the importance in making a great first impression. Placing a product in well-designed packaging distinguishes a business from its competitors, clarifies what makes them the better choice (Dandu, 2015) and shows a customer why they should choose to buy their product over another company’s product. The packaging that a company uses represents who they are as a business (Dandu, 2015) and can affect how they are perceived; it influences consumer’s opinions about the company and the value they assign it (Ellis, 2020).
Due to the importance of good design within the food sector, there are a lot of important things to consider when it comes to packaging design. A company’s values are communicated through their designs and designers within the food sector have got to make design decisions based on both their client’s business style AND what their audience finds appetizing (Ellis, 2020). They have to consider factors such as who’s buying the product, how the client would describe their brand and what separates them from their competition (Ellis, 2020).
A great way to begin is by thinking about the brand’s tone of voice. From authentic to quirky, the brand’s tone of voice is essentially the company’s personality and can be easily visualised through different styles of design. A great example of a company that shows their tone of voice through their packaging is Nom popcorn, designed by Wetdog Creative.
Nom are a funky brand that are really passionate about creating great tasting, healthy foods you can eat on the go (Anon, n.d.). Their packaging shows their fun side which represents their tasty snacks through the use of rounded, chunky typography and bright, attention grabbing colours for the background of the packaging, whilst their healthy, organic and ethnic side is shown with the use of beige and brown colours for the logo and minimalistic illustrations. These design choices are important because they instantly tell the audience about the company, helping to build trust and making the customer feel at ease.
Another key factor to consider is the company’s target audience because they are the people that will be buying the product and making the company money. The designer will have to consider what their client’s target audience are attracted to, considering colour, typography, design style and so on. There is a lot of pressure to get this right because if the target audience aren’t attracted to the design they most likely won’t buy it and the packaging will be unsuccessful.
A designer also has to consider the psychology of their client’s target audience. There are many elements to design that the brain subconsciously analyses, the most basic elements include fonts, shapes and most importantly colour.
62-90% of customers base their assessment of a product solely on colour, which could be attributed to the fact that colour registers much faster than text or complex graphics (Clark, 2016). Every colour has its own meaning, emotion and representation attached to it but when it comes to food packaging, how a colour makes its audience feel can resonate from our most basic survival tactics and can be critical for the success of the brand. Warm colours such as red, orange and yellow work best for the food sector. Of these, red is the best for inciting hunger, which could be due to the abundance of red foods in nature. Meanwhile, its best to avoid saddening colours such as blue in food branding (Ellis, 2020) because it can cause a loss of appetite, possibly because of the rarity of finding edible blue food in the wild (Ellis, 2020). It’s important to consider hunger in relation to colour because customers are more likely to buy a product that makes them hungry because they’ll want to eat the food inside the packaging.
As well as the colours used, any typography used must suit the theme of the product. For example, a new smoothie brand wouldn’t suit having a serif typeface such as Times New Roman as its primary typeface because it would look too traditional and formal. Instead, it would suit a bold, fun, modern looking sans-serif typeface that will appeal to its young target audience.
Design within the food industry relies on natural urges and ‘gut’ feelings (Ellis, 2020) because a customer is more likely to buy a design that they find appealing and looks like it has been designed for them.
In addition to all the factors mentioned previously, designers should also consider design trends to ensure that their designs are current and with the times. The food industry is a competitive market and it is important to keep up with the trends to avoid looking outdated and being overtaken by a competitor.
As a brand, McDonalds recognises the need to keep their packaging looking fresh and up to date and have re-designed their packaging over ten times since their launch in 1955, with their latest refresh by Pearlfisher this year (2021).
The renewed design recognises the rise in popularity of simplistic, illustration-based graphics and brings a sense of joy and ease to the brand through bold graphics. It makes for an expressive, visual system (Anon, 2021) that is easily recognisable and places McDonald’s playful point-of-view front and centre (Anon, 2021).
The packaging refresh also responds to the rise in demand for organic, ethnic, environmentally friendly products due to the increased awareness about sustainable living and healthy eating by using subtle imagery that relates to nature. For example, the clamshell box for the Fillet-O-Fish has a minimalistic illustration of the sea to communicate to the consumer that the fish in the sandwich is fresh and has been ethnically sourced from the sea. Another example is the egg McMuffin which has a simple, slightly imperfect yellow circle in the middle of the white packaging. This represents the free-range egg that’s inside in its most simplistic form but also conveys a minimalistic image of the sun as another nod to nature and the term ‘sunny side up’. The designs offer a narrative and create a soft feel to the brand, showing their customers that they care. The re-brand also shows McDonalds’ customers that they’ve made changes to their food, making it healthier and more ethical by responsibly sourcing their ingredients, reducing the amount of salt that they use and even adding vegan options to their menu in response to the rising cases of obesity and changing food habits.
Pearlfisher recognised that illustration-based designs are a very popular trend at the minute. They give a homely and relatable feel to a piece of packaging which installs trust in the consumer. It also gives a clean, modern look to the brand and can have more of a personal feel if the illustrations on the packaging tell a story. Walker and Drake are a dog food brand who fill their packaging with an illustration of a different dog, each with their own personality, on every variation of the food and treats that they sell.
This shows the customer that the company care and want to invest money into good design, giving them more of a personal experience and indicates that the food inside will be good for their dog. Hand rendered designs are also very popular at the minute because it shows that time and care has been put into the packaging which communicates that time and care has also been put into the product, creating a trusting and homely feel. A great example of a successful brand that uses hand rendered artwork within their packaging designs is Absolut vodka.
Each flavour has a different piece of abstract artwork on the box and bottle that vaguely represents the flavour. The hand rendered designs give a luxurious and expensive look to their products with a nod towards the art industry which appeals to their target audience perfectly.
A change in the current trends has led to the decline in popularity for photography-based packaging. When looking at any packaging that still uses photography, such as Walkers crisps, it looks very outdated and unexciting. At one point the crisp packaging would have worked well in its market, however due to the change in trends it now looks old-fashioned.
When I begin working within the food industry it will be crucial that I am conscious of current and outdated design trends to ensure that my designs work well within the market. I’m interested in working within the food sector because I regularly find myself being amazed by food packaging designs, often keeping boxes and wrappers, much like a twenty-first century Kurt Schwitters. I really enjoy designing packaging and find the feeling of seeing my designs in a physical, printed format really rewarding. Due to my experience from university and working with my own clients, I have the ability to think of fresh and innovative ideas, the knowledge on how to work with clients and the capability to get the best out of the design programs that I will need to use throughout my career, such as Adobe Illustrator and Adobe InDesign. This will give me a great starting ground to gain further knowledge and experience from, helping me to progress and become successful within the sector. I also have the experience of designing a wide range of different things for businesses in various sectors, which has helped me to practice communicating and working with different clients and gain an understanding about what skills I will need throughout my career as a graphic designer.
Packaging is massively important to make a product stand out from the crowd in an incredibly busy marketplace. With so much choice available to consumers it’s important that a product’s packaging instantly appeals to its target audience and communicates why it is the best product to buy.
Package design is a huge industry and designers within it need to use their knowledge about visual psychology, the everchanging trends and all of the other elements that contribute to a great piece of packaging. To enter the industry and become a successful packaging designer myself, I need to ensure that I’m aware about all the essential elements that need to be considered for each design. I will also benefit from experience and will work hard to build my portfolio with both commercial and personal projects.
Bibliography
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