What can put you in a better mood today than to look at a few creative packaging designs for kids? We all know that food tastes better, camping is safer, and tissues are stronger with cartoon-themed packages.

This packaging design concept for Birdy-Juice comes from Jeksel. Don’t really know much about it other than it comes in 3 different flavors, is not out yet, and has very creative custom packaging.

Packaging for kid-friendly animal tissue boxes. Paco the parrot, Fredo the turtle and Teo the tiger will be launched early September 2010 in the Eastern European market, under the ZEWA brand. The package design idea is intended to make a tissue box more attractive for children- maybe to encourage them to go to the tissue box rather than use their clothes.

International Design Consultancy P&W has designed a new range of Kids’ cereals.  Cookie Bites, Cocoa Sharks, and Apple & Cinnamon Smiles are free of artificial colorings and flavors and contain less sugar than many of the mainstream brands. Bright colors and cute cartoon characters encompass the packaging hoping to catch the attention of children from the cereal shelves in the grocery store. We all know that there is FIERCE competition.

Beautiful packaging design concept and illustrations by Sutasinee C. Seitz. The idea was to design a promotional piece to encourage family bonding through camping. The pieces are based on campfire activities- an over-sized matchbox, owl lantern, bear s’mores, bird harmonica, and fire fox fire starters make up the camping kit.

Wine packaging is the focus today. Why? Because wineries are getting more and more creative with their custom packaging (and because it’s so tasty). Packaging plays such an important role in selling and differentiation, especially in the wine industry. In a previous post from a few weeks back, we saw the wine label that could be folded out into a poster rubber-banded to the bottle rather than glued. Packaging for these four wines below are all similar in that they’re so unique.

Francis Coppola Reserve label focuses on being memorable and eye catching while showcasing distinctive vineyards from Sonoma’s renowned appellations.

Revelry wines from Washington State are sold in patent-pending REVELution cask. The innovative boxed design holds almost twice the amount of wine that a bottle holds, isn’t susceptible to cork taint and keeps wine fresh for several weeks after opening. It also features recyclable packaging.

Paco & Lola from Spain takes a very unconventional approach to bottling their wines giving prestige to their modern and dynamic varieties.

Vancouver Island design company, Hired Guns Creative has designed beautiful packaging for Venturi Schulze Vineyards. The design of their wine bottles needed to convey that their wines were something special; a typical wine label just wouldn’t do. A silk-screened bottle concept was created with a design that matches the quality of the wines and works with each of the 10-15 types of wine that they release each year.

Afro Cafe is a church electric for the soul of Africa. A cultural coffee shop with all the essential African ingredients: Afro Coffee, Tea, Wine, Fashion, Food, and Art. The franchise is inspired by the colors and designs of Africa’s townships and by the idea that African coffees and teas should no longer be exported solely as a raw material rather, they should be offered as independent high quality branded products.

So what’s with the wine? Well, we’re showing off their wine because of its incredible custom packaging and design! The packaging is very flashy and it is functional. Yes, that is a real radio wine box. And how cool is the display in their shop? Their products and packaging encompass the excitement and energy of African culture. Visit their website here for more information and photos of their sensational ambiance.

Design by:  Heidi Chisholm

One function of packaging is describing what’s inside. Here are a few fun, clever examples that demonstrate this function.

Hot Dog: A coffee shop called TrueCoffee expanded their food range to a quick bite hot dog. They wanted hot dog packaging to attract teenagers and this is what Bangkok-based designer Subconscious came up with. The unique characteristic of the food was that it’s hot all the time.

Swell Drinks: The Ruiz Company in Barcelona came up with a great way to show the fruit combination in their new line of smoothies. Simple and unique.

More clever packaging @ The Dieline

It is so imaginative when packaging features a practical purpose beyond protecting and identifying the product itself. Take this cologne bottle developed by Lebedev Studio. Strangely enough, the scent is designed for a carpenters and labor workers alike. The Levelus eau de toilette is a blend of calabriane bergamot, rosemary, and clementine oil, which go along with wood notes of birch, cedar (this is a nod to the profession, indeed) and sweet iris root and cardamom.

Going beyond the fragrance, the bottle actually works perfectly as a tool for indicating whether or not a surface is level. For frequent use, you can buy replacement perfume containers that slide back into the frame of the design.

Packaging is important. It serves as protection to a product as well as a tool to inform a consumer as to what’s inside. Some consumers consider packaging to be a waste of resources and materials. The challenge today for a packaging companies and designers is to be innovative and create custom packaging that is not perceived as wasteful. Most of the time that means sustainable or eco-friendly packaging. But in cases like this Levelus spirit level perfume bottle, adding packaging practicality so it can function as something beyond its primary purpose is innovative and looked at as resourceful.   

More information:
Lebedev Studio

Meet earBudeez™ Jay D and friends. So cool you wouldn’t even want to open them.

The fun new packaging of earbuds from JDA, Inc. packs a lot of personality, literally. JDA developed the earBudeez™ personalities with the earbuds as eyes in different positions to convey various attitudes and emotions. The innovative design of the earBudeez™ connects the product with various consumers to influence their buying behavior.

The design concept came from  research done  by Audiovox. They found that people were choosing their earbuds like a fashion accessory for their iPods and mp3 players. The research also showed that packaging played a key role in consumer decision making.

To no surprise, the earBudeez design won a 2009 Gold Pentaward- Congratulations to JDA, inc!

Some packaging designs are created simply to capture people’s attention and say “Look at me!” The product stands out from its competitors with custom packaging.

Custom packaging makes products unique and also helps differentiate products from other similar items. The key to custom packaging is to be visually appealing.

Take Red Bull Cola’s custom packaging for their popular beverage. The package features a wooden case that displays each of the 17 key ingredients that make up the Red Bull Cola taste. The packaging is designed by Design Friendship, a design company located in the United Kingdom. Instead of simply packaging single cans of Red Bull Cola, the packaging design features the product’s quality and value. The custom packaging distinguishes the beverage from other energy drinks. Besides, who doesn’t want to know all of the ingredients in Red Bull Cola?

Packaging can create value for consumers. Yes, the box a product comes in is designed to keep the product clean and prevent it from getting broken during transportation from where the product is made to the place it is finally removed from its packaging.

However, a box can do so much more:

• It can be designed to enhance the consumer’s first experience of the product. (Like wrapping presents in pretty paper during the Holidays)
• The packaging can (and should) show off the product and demonstrate how it benefits the consumer.
• The packaging can be designed to be used over again after the product has been removed either for the product itself or for another use.
• The material that makes the box can do something special like be impregnated with flower or grass seeds so that it beautifies the environment after disposal.

Take the new “green” pizza box company that launched in October. ECO Inc., a maker of environmentally friendly and multifunctional packaging, introduced its product Greenbox. The Greenbox is a pizza box made from 100 percent recycled material that also breaks down into serving plates and a storage container for leftover pizza.

The Greenbox promotes less waste and reusable packaging material, while serving as a convenient product for consumers.

Like the Greenbox, when a new product comes to market, the packaging it comes in will influence its success. A great product in a plain brown paper bag will be overlooked every time.

Be sure to work with a packaging company that can help you create custom packaging that stands out, makes consumers feel good about their purchases when they open the box, and is environmentally friendly or reusable. Check out our green packaging options at Sunrise Packaging.

One key way that you can gain customers and brand/product recognition is by changing up the design of your packaging.  Yes, if you have a “classic” design, you do not want to change it up too much and risk confusing or losing customers, but you also do not want your product to look outdated.  An old design can blend in with the competition, and you want your product to “pop” and stick out on the shelf.

Kayem needed a new design for the packaging of their hot dogs. “Classic is one thing, but ‘stale’ isn’t a term a marketer wants people to associate with his edibles.”

To change the packaging effectively, Kayem had to do a lot of market research to figure out what was wrong with the old packaging and what could make it better.  First, Kayem removed the banner, “DELI”, because customers did not know what that meant.  They decided to stick with “Old Tyme” to convey emotion and describe their hot dogs as being tasty and classic.  They also decided to add “gluten-free”, “made in the USA”, and “no fillers, no artificial flavors, no byproducts” to the packaging.  These statements have always been true of Kayem hot dogs, but they decided to focus on the health and quality of the food, otherwise consumers would not know.  Kayem also decided to stick with the blue packaging to differentiate themselves from the competition and added a pictured of a cooked hot dog to grab the consumer’s attention.

Kayem’s new packaging design proved to be effective.  After 12 weeks (ending July 11, 2009), Kayem’s volume rose 7.3 percent and sales were up 15.7 percent, according to ACNielsen’s Grilling Index.  The new packaging is proven effective, because it catches attention and people are recognizing the brand.