A good product becomes a great one when its packaging is on point.

Take a moment to imagine buying a brand-new laptop made by a leading tech company. Now visualize getting that new laptop in your home, and you're about to tear into the box. Do you notice something about that package? It's absolutely immaculate. The box itself almost seems nicer than the product inside! That's because top-tier brands know that a package is a huge part of the product experience.

Excellent product packaging is one of the first physical steps when falling in love with a company, brand, or product. So before you bound away to start creating some next-level wrapping for your organic soap brand, check out these cool little hacks that'll help make your product packaging a masterpiece.

First Things First: Your Customer

Before you start creating awesome compositions to cover your product packaging, it's important to know what kind of customers will be buying this product to know who will be interacting with your product packaging! Understanding this is vital to create the right message for your product, and the best possible packaging to go with it.

For instance, you probably wouldn't want to put a bunch of tasty-looking doodles on a smartwatch package, would you? Heck no! Those yummy illustrations will go much better with a food delivery box or something along those delicious lines!

That's because package design needs to speak directly to the audience that's buying the product.

Let's go back to the smartwatch for an example. The packaging on a tech product needs to speak to the savviness and utility of the product itself. This design calls for something much sleeker, minimal, and with a stylish modern touch.

Once you've completed the phase of learning exactly what the product is and who it's for, the next step in making your packaging pop becomes a whole lot easier.

Different Styles of Product Packaging

Packaging can get pretty funky at times, but generally speaking, there are a few set standards. Jumping straight into it, here are the most common styles that you are likely to be working with:

• Boxes
• Bottles
• Bag
• Tube
• Packet
• Canister

Within each of these different styles of packaging there are guidelines that you need have to follow when creating the design. These guidelines will reflect the dimensions you'll be working within, such as the trim line, safety line, and bleed line.

Something else to consider that lovely Mother Earth will appreciate is the material you choose for your packaging projects.

With single-use plastic containers and packaging clogging up the oceans, finding a truly eco-friendly package can be tough. Luckily, the Green Business Bureau came through with some quirky alternatives:

• Beeswax packaging
• Mushroom packaging
• Cornstarch packaging
• Seaweed packaging

These alternatives are great ways to create packaging that leaves a smaller carbon footprint. These materials are also a good way to standout against less environmentally conscious competitors.

So once you have a firm understanding of the specific packaging you'll be working with, then you can start pondering additional ways to make your product package supremely cool.

Doodle Up Those Packaging Touchpoints

A touchpoint happens when customers interact with a product at any stage of the customer journey.

Packaging is one of the most crucial touchpoints in a consumer's product journey. In some cases, the way a consumer interacts with the packaging will dictate how that individual feels about the brand overall. A shabby looking package can easily stifle the buzz of unwrapping a new product.

Not to worry, though! There are a whole bunch of ways to include illustrations in your packaging design to enhance these touchpoints.

Much in the same way that illustrations enhance UX and improve UI, introducing them into the packaging design does a number of things:

• Tells a brand story,
• Highlights a brand's style,
• Clarifies details that blank space can't, and
• Tons of other applications!

Check out the examples below. Are they all the same? No way!

Some packaging comes in boxes, others in bottles, and some in other crazy styles of wrapping up products. However, one of the common themes with many of these packaging examples is that the touchpoints use illustrations in creative ways!

Whether it's one clean logo, cool spot illustrations on the inside of a box, or fun abstract doodles that cover the entire package, adding designs to enhance the interaction between consumer and package is a solid way to ensure that a consumer falls in love with your product.

Packaging Takes Teamwork

Creating awesome product packaging is more than just making beautiful illustrations and putting them on a box. There is also a boatload of teamwork that goes into making one of these stellar creations.

Unless you are embarking on a noble journey of creating a product package on your own,  stakeholders of all kinds will be involved in the process. According to the article 'The Full Guide to Product Package Design', here are a few of the types of teammates or stakeholders you might expect to be working with when designing packaging:

• Packaging engineers
• Factory leads
• Production workers
• Product designers
• Marketing teams

This is where having Blush features come to the rescue like a doodle-y superhero.

Working and designing with a team presents some unique challenges, and since not everyone has a degree in graphic design or fine arts, having a set of Blush tools not only allows everyone to create super stylish packaging design, but also helps synchronize workflow.

Plus, with a Blush license, all of your doodle creations are good-to-go for commercial use! No need for artist attribution, which means that you can slap your doodles on all of your packaging worry free.

All stakeholders, from the most skilled designers to your colleague who can't draw a stick figure, get to unlock their creative superpowers, enabling all teammates to collaborate on the dopest packaging ever.

Product Packaging Design Idea and Tutorial

We used the Blush plugin on Figma for packaging design! Watch and learn how to create one on your own in minutes!

Your Guide to Creating Packaging that Pops

Every iconic product deserves an iconic package to go with it. Customers who have a delightful experience from the very first touchpoint are going to be the ones who not only love the product but who also come back for round two of unboxing.

So whether it is a sleek minimal look, a bright and bold abstract composition, the right set of doodles and illustrations can be the key factor in turning a box into a memorable part of the product experience.

Have you been designing product packages? If you are then we want to see those beauties ASAP! Tweet at us and share your masterful creations! Or use the tag #madewithblush

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