How to Design Packaging: A 5-Step Process From Strategy to Print
As a cpg designer and creative director, you’re still working with all the things you already mastered: brand strategy, typography, colour, hierarchy, creative direction etc…
But now your work has to exist on an actual object in real life; so it requires you to think beyond the identity and consider the entire journey from strategy to shelf.
Over the last decade of working across packaging, manufacturing, agency environments and Our Kind, I’ve developed a process from start to finish – inside the free 5-Step Packaging Design Guide, which you can download below.
What is the packaging cpg design process?
The packaging design process takes a product from the initial strategic and creative thinking through to a physical, print-ready piece of packaging, although every project is different (and I am deeply suspicious of anyone who tells you creativity can be reduced to a perfect little formula and templatised), there is a sequence of steps that needs to happen.
01 — Project foundations
02 — Strategic research
03 — Creative concepting
04 — Compliance
05 — Print-ready finalisation
Step 1: Build the project foundations
Before you touch the design, you need to understand what you’re designing and why.
Ask:
Where will it be sold?
Who is buying it?
What does the customer need to understand?
How many products exist now and how many might exist later?
What structural format are we working with?
What are the commercial ambitions of the brand?
A £15,000 packaging project should not begin with an email containing a logo where someone asks “can you make this into a box?” This would be an immediate no, and a red flag. Inside Studio Expansion you’ll learn exactly what to look for in enquiries and how to spot bad-fit opportunities.
Step 2: Use strategic research to find the opportunity
Instead of asking “what looks nice?” we look at competitors, inside a category, importantly – outside of the category, on a shelf, and what customers are buying elsewhere.
Your job is, yes, to make sure the brand looks different, but you need to understand what it needs to be different from. This is where we look at the category and the visual codes as well as the competitors.
This is the part of the process where you become the creative partner helping determine what should be designed versus taking orders as a mouse technician.
Step 3: Develop the packaging design concept
NOW we can do the sexy part! But, I want to make sure you know that there’s an important distinction between designing a pack and designing a packaging system.
This is where we have to consider how beauty coexists with ingredients, instructions, claims, weights, barcodes and all the other decidedly less-sexy things packaging needs to display.
Good packaging concept isn’t decorating a dieline – I said what I said.
Step 4: Understand packaging compliance
This is the part you won’t find on Pinterest – but you will learn in Studio Expansion. Everything including mandatory information, claims, symbols, warnings and category-specific requirements that need to be designed onto your product. The exact requirements depend on the product, category and market, and the client is responsible for confirming the regulatory accuracy of their packaging.
But as the designer, you need to understand the facts in order to work within the regulations – all of which you’ll learn when you work with me. (YAY!)
Step 5: Prepare the packaging for print
The final step! This is where the nerdy things like dielines, bleed, artwork setup, colour specifications, Pantones, finishes, image resolution and communication with printers and suppliers. I don’t want you to feel overwhelmed with this information though – I promise you, it’s easy once you know how! This is one of the biggest confidence gaps I see when established brand designers begin offering packaging – they are confident and comfortable with the design part, but intimidated by this step. But in truth, it’s very similar to working with code too – it’s detailed and once you know the principles, with practice it becomes second nature.
This is truly the piece of the project that is so incredibly valuable that many designers currently undercharge for.
Get the free 5-Step Packaging Design Guide
If you’re stepping into packaging design or you take part in the cpg space, but want a breakdown of each step — I’ve put these five stages into a practical guide you can keep beside you as you work.
