Food Packaging Design – A Complete Guide

Is your next food product ready to launch? A food brand needs a package design framework, whether they’re launching a new brand or refreshing their existing package. Create a unique food packaging design that captures a category with this comprehensive guide. A custom food package designed just for you by a professional designer will showcase your product’s personality. Are you looking for ideas? From our global community of designers, we’ve gathered some amazing examples of food product packages.

Consumers’ shopping habits have changed since the pandemic, with a shift from supermarkets to supporting small independent brands and local food outlets. Many of us also tried out sourdough bread for the first time, while others started their own food brands like Sourdough lockdown bakers Butter and Crust. This article is for you if you are in that category and looking to monetize your culinary passion.

The Concept Stage of Food Packaging Design

So you’ve decided to make money from your lockdown hobby of homemade lollipops? Maybe you’re a designer working for a giant food corporation who wants to launch their new on-the-go snack? Whatever the case may be, you’ve arrived at the concept stage. Get your blank pages and pens ready for some brand strategy mind mapping!

Three questions to ask yourself before starting the design process

Before starting a design project, ask yourself these three questions

It’s essential to nail down your brand messaging before launching a new food product and briefing a designer or designing the product yourself. Before jumping into the design process, consider these three questions when mind-mapping your brand strategy.

#1. What’s the product?

Food packaging designs are determined by the type of product you’re packaging. The choice of typefaces, illustration styles and packaging options will differ if you are branding small-batch chocolates with a premium price tag versus a large-scale production with a cheaper price tag.

#2. What are your product’s buyers like?

Understanding your target audience’s mindset is crucial. What are the needs of the target audience and what do they like about the product? You can better understand how to talk to your ideal customer if you build a picture of them.

For example, if you want to target high-earning millennial women, research the brands they buy, how much they spend, and what kind of packaging they prefer. Using this method, you will create a mood board of other food brands that will inspire you to create within your audience’s ideal product range.

#3. What is the best way to describe your brand and product?

A great exercise when mapping out your brand and product vision is to think of your brand as a personality. You can then start thinking about how this would work visually based on what words you would use to describe your brand. Can your brand be fun and vegan-friendly, such as Minor Figures oat milk? Taking these personality points into account will help you decide what typefaces and illustrations to use.

How Can Food Packaging Design Captivate Consumers?

The best food packaging goes beyond eye-catching labels and innovative shapes. It’s about designing packages that attract consumers while clearly identifying your brand. Here are some tips for creating packaging that will be a hit.

Brand identity

It is often the packaging that customers first encounter, whether in a store, on TV, or in an advertisement. You need clear, identifiable packaging to stand out from your competitors (and attract buyers).

Take some time to define your brand identity before designing your packaging. What products do you sell? Who are your main customers? How does your brand represent its values? In order to drive design elements such as color, size, and material, it is important to know the answers to these questions.

Expanding your product line also requires a strong brand identity. Packaging and branding that are easily recognizable will make selling new products to existing customers easier.

Consistency

Even if your business is just getting started, consistent packaging will give your brand a professional edge. Customers will have difficulty finding your products if you constantly change your logo, colors, and designs.

Here are some guidelines for keeping things consistent across your catalog.

1. Type and font choices: One of the fastest ways to tie everything together is to use the same font on all of your packaging. Don’t forget to capitalize – if you use all lower-case, all upper-case, or a mix of the two, do so on every label.
2. Color scheme: Setting a color scheme for your brand can allow for a wide range of design options while maintaining a sense of unity. There is no doubt that color has a significant influence on consumers’ buying habits, whether it is a distinct, complementary color for different product lines, or the same few colors on every single package.

Extensibility

By altering your packaging for new products, you can expand your brand without having to do an entire overhaul.

Think about packaging your brand’s first product, coconut water, for example. Coconuts are the star of your killer packaging design. You have a coconut-themed label, a coconut-themed design, and perhaps even a coconut-themed package.

A few months later, you decide to introduce a new line of pineapple juice. Because your original design concept was so coconut-centric, you’re now having difficulty creating consistent packaging for all the products you’re hoping to offer.

Always plan your packaging design with an eye toward the future in order to avoid this costly and time-consuming dilemma. In spite of the fact that you can still incorporate elements of a specific product into your design, ensure that the design can be easily adapted in the future.

Practicality

A package that looks impressive and blows your competition out of the water may not always be the best choice. The practicality of a package is determined by its functionality, shape, and size. It is not just about the ease of use for the customer, but also about whether a store decides to stock the product.

The majority of packages are designed to be displayed one way on store shelves. Even when space is limited, multiple facing options can make it easier to get your product approved by buyers. Consider the packaging of standard toothpaste, for example. Most toothpaste boxes are horizontal, taking up more shelf space than height. An alternative side display option on the packaging gives stores more flexibility in arranging shelves.

Making your products hassle-free for stores can also be considered practicality. For this example, let’s go back to toothpaste. The packaging of toothpaste in a box can make it easier to stack on shelves, but if the weight distribution is imbalanced (such as top-heavy toothpaste in vertical packaging), it can be challenging to keep these boxes upright. In the event that stores are continually struggling to prevent impractical or unbalanced packages from falling on the floor, these products will almost certainly disappear from their lineups.

Consider the following questions when considering practicality:

1. What is the ease of opening this product?
2. Is this product suitable for the purpose for which it was designed? (Fridge, freezer, cabinet, etc.)
3. Is design sacrificing ease of use?

Materials

Packaging materials can have a significant impact on both cost and customer perception. Packaging materials such as plastic and packing peanuts may be cheaper when packing goods and shipping them to stores, but they may convey the wrong message about your brand values.

Choosing eco-friendly packaging like compostable bags or recycled paper, however, may raise your overheads, but it may score you points with specific groups of customers.

Whatever packaging route you choose, ensure that your materials match your brand’s image.