NZGBA – New Zealand Glass Bead Artists

Package design is as much a sign of the times as it is functional. It may seem to be little more than a protective container, but as the external manifestation of a brand, its role is much more pivotal.

According to Geoffrey Hollows, a consultant at Heawood Research, there are two aspects to packaging: “First, there is the physical function. Second, there is the psychological function and that is the one you have got to get right.”

It is at this unconscious level that consumers engage with a brand. Brand owners have long realised that they can sell a product by imbuing the brand with qualities that the consumer both recognises and aspires to. Powerful brands are those that have successfully been able to reflect and influence a consumer’s ideas, values and attitudes.

It’s what’s on the outside…

As the face of the brand, packaging design needs to reflect the emotional bond that connects the consumer to the product. But, while the concept behind packaging has not changed–to sell a product and create an emotional tie with a brand–the ways in which design has been used to express the concept has evolved to reflect the different cultures and trends through the years.

“The past five decades of consumerism have seen brands and packaging evolve from post-war existence on a mass scale to one of affiliation and personal definition,” says Jonathan Ford, creative partner at brand consultancy Pearlfisher. During the power-hungry Eighties, brands took on a more prominent role to express the identities of consumers. “It was more ostentatiously about design,” says Stephen Bell, creative director at Coley Porter Bell (CPB). “Everything had broad shoulders, even the packaging.”

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