Have you ever seen a box or an advertisement that is covered with so many words, that you don’t know what to pay attention to?
An advertisement, or a package that has too many words may detract from sales. Most people make a decision to buy something extremely quickly. If a product, advertisement or package looks ‘too complicated’ it’s possible to lose buyers.
Words in advertising and in packaging should be short, to the point, and engaging. A great example of this is the following:
This is a good example of wording because it tells the potential buyer, what it is, and what it does with a minimum amount of words. It allows a buyer to make a quick decision. There is nothing in this design that would make someone struggle to understand what the product is.
As you’re planning your next foray into design, consider using your words as minimally as possible for the greatest impact.
It could be argued that color is one of the most important choices one makes when choosing a packaging design. Whether it’s done well or poorly, color evokes emotions.
It’s known that serving diners food on a blue plate will encourage them to eat less, while serving food on and orange or yellow plate will encourage them to eat more. Colors like dark navy, hunter green, burgundy or black can evoke tradition, respect, or even somberness, and deeper purples can evoke royalty, status or class. Pastel colors can often be associated with children, while reds can evoke desire, passion, authority, happiness, or conversely fear.
Color can be used well or poorly. One opinion of color used poorly is below.
Of course, poor color choice is selective, but why was this design chosen specifically?
Green is a good color to promote a feeling of nature, or a feeling of money (especially in the US). It is also a good color to be used to catch someone’s attention. On the other hand, once their attention is caught, what part do we pay attention to? Do we really see the apps over the overwhelming green of the background?
it is one writer’s opinion that if the above color was on packaging for a product, the packaging would not work. While it does have a ‘wow’ factor, the green of the packaging, like the green in this picture, would seem to shout louder than the product.
However, it would be interesting to notice that if the same picture was in a different color, such as a similar color like teal, how the message of the product or applications might have stood out over the packaging.
Using Apple as an example, here is another example of color choices.
Both packages pictured above use colors to emphasize and brighten without overpowering. The ‘natural’ and the ‘white’ state traditional while caring about the environment, while the colors used in the center add balance, freshness, and ‘likability.’ Although they don’t scream “Look at me” like the above example, they do say, “I’m trustworthy.”
The pink ribbon is becoming one of our newest most recognized symbols. Breast cancer awareness campaigns are spreading through the country, and products from soups to cement trucks are taking up the message.
Soups?
Cement trucks?
Spongebob?
Nonprofits, like the ones that support Breast Cancer Awareness, are increasingly using the powerful impact of images to keep the message in front of potential donors minds. And it appears to be working. For a symbol that less than 10 years ago few would have associated with anything except for a little girl’s hair, breast cancer awareness nonprofits have been using branding, including packaging, to get their message out in an extremely positive way.
As more nonprofits realize the power of branding and packaging, maybe our society will use branding to bring the most important message of all.
With the ever increasing popularity of USB flash drives, also known as jump drives or thumb drives, companies are coming up with more and more creative designs for these devices. Here are some that we found at Gadget4all:
Care for a flash memory shot?
This one is a mp3 player, voice recorder, AND a flash memory stick:
Like to eat/cook? There are plenty of creative food designs:
Don’t go without protecting these valuable devices. When you need to package all of your creative USB flash drives, give Sunrise a call. We can help create a custom package to go with your unique devices that can help prevent them from being lost/damaged.
In September, a new compilation of digitally remastered Beatles Albums will be available. The people at BoxOfVistion, LLC have come up with a great box to hold the new discs.
The Box of Vision (BoV) itself is beautifully covered in linen with a picture of the band and a silver foil Beatles logo and accents. The graphic on one side look like a stack of LPs giving the box a great retro look.
Inside are three books chronicling the band and their albums and a unique storage system to hold 32 Beatles Albums on CD. The system is built specifically to store the 32 CDs and CD booklets that comprise THE BEATLES core album catalog, from PLEASE PLEASE ME through LOVE. There are five beautiful art adorned page spreads where CD booklets can be stored in one-to-one correspondence with their accompanying CDs.
As you can see, custom packaging can add value or even be a stand alone product. You can read more or order the BoV at boxofvision.com
Usb flash drives are becoming more and more common for schools, businesses, entertainment, and personal use. The face that they are rewritable with flash memory makes these devices very handy, especially for working projects on the go, temporary files, or simply just backing up your information.
With the growing popularity of USB flash drives, we wondered how exactly they were made. Thankfully, Netbook News posted a video of a tour through Kingston Manufacturing Plant showing how they are produced and packaged. Here it is for you to see.
Barnes & Noble announced that the have opened the world’s largest eBookstore. The eBookstore has over 700,000 titles and they anticipate having over 1,000,000 titles by 2010.
Electronic book readers do not need to purchase a separate device to read the ebooks, Barnes & Noble offers a free eReader download in teh eBookstore that is compatible with Blackberries, iPhones/iPods, and PCs/Macs.
eBooks are a great resource for travel since readers do not need to carry separate books.
We keep seeing proof that the trend of Blu-Ray technology is here to stay. As the popularity grows, sales will go up and prices will go down. This will allow the Blu-Ray technology to continue to penetrate the market.
According to High-Def Digest, 3.1 million Blu-Ray discs have sold in the UK since the start of the year…that’s about a 231 percent increase in sales! Their DVD sales, on the other hand, only went down slightly by about 9.5 percent.
This week, Best Buy discounted a house brand Blu-Ray player, the Insignia Blu-Ray disc player with 1080p output to only $99.99. Wal-Mart is also offering a deal under $100 with their Magnavox NB530MGX Blu-Ray player for only $98 as a permanent “rollback” from the previous $168 price. At the same time, online retailer, Amazon, is offering a sale on Blu-Ray discs starting at $14.99 each. According to NPD Group Inc., Blu-Ray player sales have increased by 72 percent in the first quarter of 2009 in comparison to the first quarter of 2008.
With the growing Blu-Ray popularity and the increase in sales, we are starting to see the prices drop for Blu-Ray players and Blu-Ray discs. As this happens, Blu-Ray is starting to become more affordable and available for most everyone.
I saw this series of Star Wars MIMOBOT designer flash drives by Mimoco and just had to show you.
They make a variety of different character-based designer USB flash drives, such as series of Star Wars, Halo, Domo, and Happy Tree Friends. The Star Wars series is a popular one and features various characters from the movie.
This set is perfect for every Star Wars fan. And these aren’t just empty USB flash drives that have cute designs. They are also programmed with exclusive digital content, such as wallpapers, screensavers, icons, and avatars. Not only that, but they also play sounds from the Star Wars movie when the drive is inserted or ejected from the computer. They offer these USB flash drives in 1GB, 2GB, 4GB, and 8GB capacities.
If you collect these or any other series, be sure to store them in a durable case that can hold multiple drives. Then they can be protected, kept together, and have their value displayed for all to see. You could even make your own cover artwork for a case with a clear overlay. Most importantly, if you are collecting a valuable series like this, you want to keep the drives together and protect them from any damage.
You can package your product in a simple white paper sleeve or paperboard mailer and we can help you with that. There are lots of projects that this type of packaging is perfect for.
However when you are talking about products for the retail market, either on-line or at a bricks and mortar store, movie and music enthusiasts choose the physical product over a download for one reason… The Packaging.
The following is a short list of movie and music reviewers and their thoughts on the packaging and the value it adds:
Rev/Views DVD & Television blog
Review of the first season of the TV series “Chuck“:
“Now I am a bit of a packaging enthusiast, mostly because I feel I’ve invested money in purchasing DVDs and as such I want them to look nice on the shelf and work well.”
Creative Review blog
Review of “Glastonbury The Movie“:
“At a time when you can get online and simply download music and films, really it’s down to the packaging of albums and DVDs to make the tangible music or film product a viable option to the consumer.”
Pulse Wrestling blog
Review of the WWE “Randy Savage Ultimate Collection“:
“As someone who collects a lot of disc based stuff (hardcore video game collector here), I like it when the stuff occupying my shelf looks good.”
Review of “Wilco (the album)”:
“certain bands, you need to buy the physical recording, because there’s packaging that speaks to what the album is and isn’t.”
NSRMTB blog
Review of “Tipping Point“:
“To all those out there that would rather download a DH DVD than buy one you are going to miss out on some cool packaging and shame on you.”
Bring on Mixed Reviews blog
Review of “The Dear Hunter“:
“The album’s packaging is also something to behold. The time and effort put into the old timey photos that double as track lyrics/notes, is simply amazing. If you have The Prize Fighter Inferno‘s album “My Brother’s Blood Machine” then you know what I am referring to, it returns my faith in the CD medium, where so many have abandoned it for hollow digital downloads.”
These are just some of many comments that prove that the packaging adds value to an album or movie. You could decrease piracy and downloads by investing in custom packaging that is creative and eye-catching. By doing this, you are making the physical product of your album or movie a must-have for every fan.
MamaPop
