What makes a good package design?
Ask me, "What makes a good package design?" And you'll be surprised to hear my answer. You see, I'm a designer. So form over function is how most people assume I roll. But early on in my career I discovered the pitfalls of a design based entirely on form. There's nothing worse than putting your heart and soul into a project and watching it fall flat. The pain of a design missing the mark is why TIV has reinforced our ability to research and develop strategies based on data rather than just client recommendations and our gut.I would say the key to good package design is how well it follows your strategy. Boring, right? Nope. I actually think the designer who can work within the set parameters of any project is the winner. Style guide? No problem, there's still room to be creative. Strategy that focuses on a very specific audience? Great! Let's show them something new and brilliant that they didn't even know they wanted. To me that ability to solve a problem is the difference between design and art...and it's what makes it so fun.Packaging is the ultimate test. Can you get inside the head of your audience? Can you find the opportunity presented to you by competitors? Will the product fly off the shelves? Answer those questions and you'll have a great package design.Packaging also presents a unique opportunity to design an experience. We work closely with printers to develop the structure of our designs whenever possible. And when we have a set structure to use we work to find unique design elements to highlight an otherwise standard unit. Same goes for the printing process. Sure, we'd love to design packaging with an emboss, foil, litho printing...any number of beautiful print processes. But if the budget doesn't allow it, then the game becomes designing something outstanding using something as rudimentary as flexo.In the end, the research that guides that strategy (the phase in our process known as DISCOVER) should be a heavy focus of any packaging project. Without that roadmap you're doing little more than designing based on form over function.