First impressions are crucial, and most people formulate an opinion of your brand within seconds of being introduced to it. Smart, eye-catching packaging designs are essential for helping your products stand out from the crowd.
As a food and beverage industry member, it’s vital that you put your products out onto the market with their best face forward. It’s a highly competitive industry, so you’ll need the right experts to help you create attractive packaging designs for your products that also stay true to your company brand.
Cad Crowd has a vast network of freelancers that can work on any design project. By matching your team with one of our thousands of pre-vetted designers, we can help your company build stunning, cutting-edge food and beverage packaging designs that turn new buyers into loyal customers.
What’s in a design? In many ways, it’s an introduction. It tells a potential customer what you’re trying to sell and what distinguishes it from the dozens of other products sitting on the shelf next to yours. It also tells the potential customers what your company is all about.
Packaging design is more critical than ever. In an ever-growing CPG industry, it’s crucial to have package designs that give a proper introduction to your products and help establish your brand identity. If you’re trying to sell a kid’s cereal, you’ll probably want to go for fun, bold colors. If you’re a health-focused company that caters to adults, you might aim for more subtle colors and an understated design.
Check out these benefits of having a great packaging design for your products:
🔥Helps reflect product quality: Good packaging design should reflect the quality of the product it holds. Consumers tend to associate brand design and material construction with the potential quality of a product. So, if you only use cheap and flimsy materials for your products, potential customers may conclude that they are low-quality and, therefore, not worth putting in their cart. Showcasing key ingredients, adding a brand story, and following best practices for design can make a huge difference.
😍Connects you to your audience: Color psychology plays a massive role in attracting potential customers and creating an emotional response from them. Red often creates a sense of urgency, making it a popular choice for fitness supplements. Blue and green are usually associated with nature, making the colors great for eco-friendly products. Even certain fonts speak well to and attract specific demographics.
⚡Product protection: Packaging materials are not only crucial for establishing the quality of your products, but they are also crucial for keeping your products safe and secure during the shipping process. Customers will not be happy if your cute, trendy box falls apart on the ride home. So you will need to make sure you’re striking a nice balance between form and function with your packages.
Whether you’re selling ketchup or granola bars, you need to invest serious time and energy in creating packaging designs that will help your products stand out from the hundreds of other competing products.
Branding and ad strategy surround us almost everywhere we go. Often, it is subtle. It doesn’t come out in full force or attempt to shove itself in front of your face. But it’s there.
You might be surprised at the number of products that require clean, thought-out designs, such as:
| ☑ Wine bottles | ☑ Beer bottles | ☑ Soda cans |
| ☑ Condiment packaging | ☑ Snack bags | ☑ Candy packages |
| ☑ Juice bottles | ☑ Banners | ☑ Cereal boxes |
| ☑ Frozen food packages | ☑ Milk cartons | ☑ Canned goods |
| ☑ Coffee bags |
The consumer goods industry is highly competitive. Because of this, you’ll need a team of trusted designers to help you build a design that will help your target audience realize your vision and see the value in your products.
At best, poor packaging can be overlooked or ignored by customers. At worst, it can leave a sour taste in their mouths and repel them from your brand. What you want to do, is inspire and excite customers with your packages.
Our pool of freelancers includes designers who specialize in a wide range of services, such as:
| ♛ Logo designs | A logo can say a lot about a company. It tells consumers the foundation of your business’s brand identity and helps separate you from the competition. Your logo will likely be seen in multiple places, from social media pages to the front of a package. Despite this, some corporate executives and small business owners underestimate the importance of a logo. Rather than hire a professional designer, some try to fashion a logo themselves from a template. But this “shortcut” can be detrimental to their business in the long run. Generic, confusing, and just plain ugly logos can turn away potential customers. |
| ♛ Counter display or point of sale display designs | Well-crafted counter displays can function as silent salespeople. Counter displays are perfect for promoting new products, advertising discounted items, or simply encouraging customers to try out your product. Because of their strategic location and easy accessibility, they’re great for encouraging impulse purchases. |
| ♛ Label designs | Packaging labels can be found on bottles, cans, boxes, and bags. They’re found on almost any consumer goods product you come across. Because of their ubiquity, you need to put serious effort into designing an attractive and eye-catching label design. Most labels incorporate the company’s logo, which brings us back to the importance of designing a great logo. |
| ♛ 3D renderings | Creating 3D renderings can help see how your package designs will look in real life. They are also cost-effective and easy to share with team members. Some companies even use 3D renderings for marketing purposes, which can help them save time and money spent on traditional photoshoots. |
| ♛ Carton designs | Juice, coffee, milk, and even water can be packaged into cartons. Companies will often include their logo and a summary of their history onto their cartons. In addition to having a nutrition label, companies may also spotlight key features or ingredients like “Dairy-Free” or “Fat-Free” to catch the eye of customers. |
| ♛ Candy packaging | Customers probably aren’t going to buy candy if its packaging design is dull. Remember, you’re competing against dozens of other brands out there. Everything down to the wrapper should be taken into consideration. |
| ♛ Snack food bags | The design and material of a food bag have a huge impact on your company’s brand identity. For instance, some health-focused companies use matte packaging with images of farms or rivers to instill a sense of calmness and relaxation. |
So how does the magic happen? It doesn’t all go down in one step, that’s for sure. There’s a tried and true practice that most brands follow to produce a high-quality design worthy of their great product!
1. Briefing: In this stage, a company meets with a designer to determine its target audience, identify competitors, create a timeline, and set a budget. It’s arguably the most crucial stage of the project.
2. Planning: In the planning stage, the designer will create a timeline filled with various deadlines to help the project move forward on time.
3. Research: While a dark, modern look might work well for, say, a new wine bottle, the same design wouldn’t be quite as successful for a kid’s candy bar. Understanding your target audience is key to creating a successful design, and the research stage is where you will learn more about your audience and competitors.
4. Dieline: Your designer will create a flat diagram of your package at this stage, and this design will include all of your package’s cut lines and folds.
5. Concepts: During the design concepts stage, the designer will make sure your package follows all legal and mandatory guidelines regarding your product’s nutritional facts and the listed ingredients.
6. Revisions: You will probably want to see multiple edits throughout the process. The designer will make these changes accordingly until they produce a design that meets your needs and expectations.
7. Reviews: Once you release the product, you might conduct a market survey to see how consumers respond to it.
There are dozens of package design software programs on the internet. But not all package design programs are the same. That’s why designers need to do their research to help them determine the best program for their needs and budget.
Here are some of the most popular programs currently used by the top package designers:
Ready to give your food and beverage packaging a facelift? Then check out our pool of freelance CAD designers. We’ve worked with companies of all sizes, from small businesses to corporations like Tiffany C. and PepsiCo, to confidentially hire CAD designers and freelance engineers. Get a personalized quote for your project today!
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