Good quality packaging design won’t just deliver optimal protection for your products – it will play an important role in communicating your brand identity, attracting customers to your business, and enhancing their overall experience of buying from you.
Your mailing boxes and retail boxes need to be robust, but you also need to make the most of all available space so they are immediately identifiable (and you’re not missing a trick where your marketing is concerned).
Not sure where to start when it comes to creating custom-made boxes that will help you make your mark? Here’s our pick of the best design practices for creating packaging boxes.
Make sure you prioritise brand consistency in all your designs
Your packaging will need to reflect your brand’s colour scheme, typography, logo, and style. For a professional and aesthetically pleasing result, use consistent brand colours, fonts, and logo placement across all your box designs to strengthen brand recognition.
Use high-quality materials
Don’t be tempted to cut corners here! Choosematerials that are durable and appropriate for the product, so the box has enough integrity to keep your items safe and secure while they’re in transit.
For luxury or fragile products, we’d suggest using thicker, corrugated cardboard. If you’re more of an eco-conscious brand, you can opt for recycled or biodegradable materials; this will give you top marks with sustainability focused consumers.
Design your boxes for flawless functionality
All your packaging should be easy to open, handle, and reseal if necessary, while still being tamperproof and offering enough protection.
Include handles for larger boxes, consider easy-to-open mechanisms that will make your customers’ lives easier, and avoid excessive layers that complicate the unboxing process, as they will only frustrate people.
Go for a minimalist approach
A clean, simple design often makes a stronger impact than overly complex visuals. So, if you can, limit text and graphics to the essentials, using ample white space and focusing on one or two standout elements to avoid visual clutter.
If you’d like to include more features on your box packaging but you’re worried that your design will end up looking amateurish, you can always ask our in-house designers for help creating something that’s well-balanced.
Ensure print quality and colour accuracy
High print quality and consistent colours will reinforce a sense of professionalism in everything you produce.
Use high-resolution images and state-of-the-art printing processes where budget allows, and make sure your colour calibration matches your brand guidelines for a professional finish.
Incorporate key product information
To avoid any confusion, you will need to include necessary product details clearly and concisely on the box. Depending on what’s you’re shipping or storing, be sure to include display information like size, weight, ingredients, or usage instructions in a readable font.
Optimise for retail display
If you’re creating new in-store packaging, you’ll need to consider all the visual elements that will catch your customers’ eye on a crowded shelf.
Use bold colours, striking graphics, or unique shapes that stand out. Also, position essential product information where it’s visible on retail displays, so people don’t need to go hunting for answers to their immediate questions.
Focus on practical dimensions
Getting the size of your packaging box just right can be difficult, because you want to minimise waste and shipping costs without leaving the concept lacking.
Design your boxes to fit the product snugly, reducing the need for extra padding materials. This reduces transportation fees and helps to give the impression of a carefully crafted design.
Add interactive elements
Introducing buyers to your interactive features can enhance their user experience and provide added value.
You might want to add QR codes to your boxes that can signpost your customers towards product tutorials, videos, or exclusive content. As well as giving them what they need to make the most of your item(s), encouraging engagement online can also help to bolster your website traffic and social media following.
Consider your box’s sustainability credentials
Opt for recyclable, compostable, or reusable materials to appeal to your increasingly eco-conscious consumers and reduce the overall environmental impact of your merchandise.
Ask your packaging provider if they can use recyclable cardboard, work with water-based inks, and avoid adding in unnecessary plastic elements. (At Hallmark Labels, we can do all the above, and much more!)
Create limited edition or seasonal packaging
Special edition packaging can increase the excitement factor around holidays or prior to product launches.
There’s no need to create entirely new visuals (unless you want to). You can simply update the design with seasonal colours, limited edition branding, or collectible graphics to get your designs into the seasonal spirit.
Make your unboxing experience memorable
Unwrapping your items should be a delight – so you need to pull out all the stops to make your customers happy (and encourage them to shout about your wares on social media).
You can use custom inserts, branded tissue paper, custom thank-you cards, or QR codes leading to an exclusive offer. All these special touches will help to create a premium feel around your products that will stick in your purchasers’ minds.
Another piece of advice: don’t be afraid to test your packaging design before committing to it!
If you’re not quite sure whether you’ve nailed your box design, there’s always the opportunity to run drop tests, usability tests, and customer feedback sessions so you can better understand how easy it is to use, how functional it is, and whether or not it complements your brand aesthetic.
Getting input from the people who are going to be using your boxes on a daily basis will help you refine your concept and gain confidence in what you’ve produced.
We offer free samples, which can help to speed up the decision-making process without additional overheads. Contact our sales team to learn more!
