Week One

We began our course with a fun assignment of a scavenger hunt. Each of us tasked with the same list of items to locate, we were to take photos of items and share them in small groups to then compile our best finds to share to the class.

Bellow I have the description of what to location, the photo, and a brief explanation of my choice.

I was away on vacation for the weekend so I completed my scavenger hunt between my local Whole Foods and the Ocean City NJ boardwalk. 

For our weekly reading, we were assigned to read three articles from the package inspiration website Packaging-Design.Net from three different categories. 

The articles I chose were:

1.  Food: Beautiful mailer boxes for roasted coffee

Personalized mailer boxes help companies create effective advertise campaigns and give a branding refresh to new and returning consumers. Using ecological packaging not only helps the environment, but it also brings a positive image to your brand. The article shares two examples of two coffee companies that utilize ecological packaging in a beautiful way to promote their brand.

 

Dak Coffee Rosters’ business model stands on the idea of responsible production. Their coffee mailers are minimal in design and encourage consumers to reuse the boxes for whatever purpose. Coffee Republic also has a minimalistic design, but they also use the natural color of the box to limit extra print production to add color.

 

2.  Beauty & Health: Boxes for shipping – ideas for skincare products

Packaging goes beyond just product protection as it serves a way to captivate the attention of a consumer. The article shares three examples of skin care brands that utilize unique packaging to stand out on the shelves. 

First, Maya uses elegant floral illustrations on the front left corner of their boxes to grab the users attention and encourage them to rotate the box to see all of the content. Next, QIQU using a bring purple and teal color to captivate attention. The positive/negative pattern evokes curiosity and is a nice visual texture. Finally, Yues Rocher lid is a knock-out in the design, so consumers can see into the box without having to open it. 

3. News & Trends – Best Packaging Design Companies 

Creating packaging that is practical and functional as well as bold yet minimal is a trend across many of the large, successful packaging agencies. The article lists a handful of successful packaging agencies that construct work for their client that captures the consumer’s attention. 

Trends I notices across the photos of example products is the bold color choices, minimal approach, utilizing textures, and a “clean”, structured layout. Not every example used all four observations, but each of them focused on making the design unique.