Package design and display

Today many products are sold in packages. Why? For consumers, well-designed packages capture attention, increase the delight of purchase, add some visual attractiveness to shelves and cupboards at home. All of this reaches a high point in products packaged as gifts. In a more material vein, packages can assure purchasers of the standard quality and quantity of their protected contents, and they simplify the handling, storing, and using of the many things brought into the home. Distinguished packages are potent selling factors – in stores, in newspaper and magazine advertisements, and on television.

Package design is not simple and easy. A designer usu­ally begins with restrictions of size, shape, materials, weight, and cost. And within these restrictions it is his task to produce a container that will fight its own battle for attention. In one sense, his package is a small-size poster which tells the pro­spective purchaser about what is inside. But unlike poster, a package is three-dimensional, and, therefore, must tell its story from any angle or side. Also it is seldom seen in isola­tion: it will be lined up with a number of identical packages and it will be adjacent to competing products.

Packages, at their best, attract immediate and favourable attention and specific sales messages. One effective approach is a picture related to the package's contents. The labels on many fruits and vegetables tell you immediately and more effectively than words what to expect inside. But some products, such as cake mixes or lawn seeds, do not lend themselves to such treatment. Package designers often tempt the buyer with a picture of the end result. This container gains selling impact through directness and simplicity. A convincingly realistic representation of a lawn covers most of the box. Its grass-green colour is accentuated by a band of orange around the bottom. Five words printed in very bright orange on a blue-green oval proclaim the product and the manufacturer. On the shelves of a garden supply store, this conspicuous package is quickly recognized. And even though its size, shape, and mate­rial are similar to hundreds of other packages, this one is suf­ficiently distinctive to capture attention, arouse the buying urge, and be easily remembered.

Disposable fabric, like some other products, do not lend themselves to picture realization. The designer, facing this fact, relied on a bold but appropriate abstract design. The top and four sides are divided into rec­tangles which form a distinctive, quickly recognizable pattern. To insure identification from any angle, the brand name is clearly printed on each side. Used since 1938 with only minor changes, this package design has had an unusually long life.

Some products lend themselves to transparent packaging, an ideal solution because the purchaser can see what he is buying and yet know that it has been protected.

The bottle the appetite-arousing colour of the beverage, makes the brand-name clear, and is shaped to stay in your hand.

Little more could be asked for hairbrushes and soft beverages but much more is asked for such tempting luxuries as perfumes.

Families of packages and coordinated displays that arise the buying push are two of the devices producers employ to sell their wares. Notice in the paint display the repetition of the name on the stripes, the consistency of the lettering, the round spots, and the paint brush motif which links products and advertising together. The "Toiletries Bar", in contrast, is stately and formal as befits the luxuries it holds, and the containers have a masculine sturdiness sympathetic to their users.