This book by Giles Calver, who is with us for the day during Outstanding By Design on 10th May,  is now a reference for design students in the UK. It is strongly visual while containing a lot of very useful guidance around the application of brand within packaging.

It is not specifically just for food but contains a lot of food case studies.

Some excerpts with my comments on same:

“..with the prominence of branding, packaging is often the living embodiment of a brand’s values and personality”

> Packaging is important – but only part of the overall picture. If you don’t have a good grasp of the core elements of your marketing messages and branding positioning your packaging won’t make much difference

“Packaging’s primary face….should engage with consumers, attracting attention, triggering consideration”

> Your Packaging has only one goal – to sell your product.The design – a combination of the visual elements and the text – should be rigidly focused on that.

“The central message refers to the main persuasive issues or arguments..the peripheral message refers to all other tangential elements…”

> You will have difficult choices to make – deciding what are the key 1 or 2 reasons why a consumer purchases your product/brand and ditching the rest in the packaging design3 is the absolute limit – this is already too many messages for a consumer to scan.

“a brand becomes a compound of tangible and intangible values, the latter being formed in consumers mindsit is very important to define your intangible values…packaging design can..portray these..”

> If you are a start-up your brand has no heritage so consumers start from scratch in sub-consciously deciding what the brand stands for.They will take a lot of their cues from the packaging and if you get it wrong your brand will suffer and you will loose control even faster

Giles will be with us for the full day during Outstanding By Design on 10th May and he will be available for 1 to 1 meet ups.

More information including the full line up and booking here.

Keith