Design Ideas For Packaging

My packaging ideas are to inform people of reasons why being single is good. My packagings purpose is to be 101 reasons to stay single, how to lose a guy in 5 steps and a general sign to advertise the idea.

First of my ideas was to make my design bright, colourful and minimal to express to freedom of being single. Here are some of my initial ideas:

I wanted the design to have a hand-drawn feel to it. So using pen and ink I drew my own cage and bird. Because there was a limit to two colours I thought black was a good choice to start designing with. It is a staple colour for both image and text and works well alongside any other colour. 

I then added my image to the net and created a blue sky image using the brush tool in Photoshop. Looking at the CMYK channels I experiment with different variations, obviously only having two colours available meant the design had to be relatively simple. The two adjacent images below are examples of experimenting print with just two colours.

I printed these quick ideas out to get an idea what they would look like in 3D. Doing this helped me enormously. There were many flaws in my design that I hadn't noticed when working on them digitally. 

When printed out the bird and cage are cut out so they stand up. Doing this created problems with the design of the rest of the box. I think the design looks good from the front. It looks like the bird is flying out of the cage and away to freedom/singledom. The colour is pretty horrible. I wanted it to look feminine and fresh, however it just looks like splats of colour have been sprayed on to the box. The clouds are not very distinguishable and the general design and finish I was looking to produce is lost when the box is assembled.

From above the design looks messy. Where the bird has been cut out there is a hole and it looks unfinished. The gap at the front is where the information will be kept '101 reasons to stay single'. The gap is too big and the shape isn't quite right.

  

The images don't seem to have an much 'spark' and the colour almost seems dead and flat on the page. They don't pop out and grab your attention.

I felt these designs were just not right and that they didn't really express me as a designer. They would not be something I would want to show off basically. I think the background design was too complicated, with the use of gradient and shading, using just two colours didn't do the image any justice.

So then I started looking at colour swatches, and which colours could work together well. I wanted to create a fun yet subtle design. Throwing all gradients out of the window, I looked at simple block colours and how they compliment and effect each other.

I settled on a relatively plain palette (bottom left). The white represents the stock. Stock was unlimited, therefore I could have chosen a multitude of stocks to influence my design further; however limiting myself to only one stock would help bring all three packagings together as a range and help to develop an identity within the project. Black is a very good colour to use for text and works well with any other colours. I chose a soft brown for my last colour. My thought behind this was that I could alter the opacity to create beiges and creams, helping to create a wider range of colours, but still only needing two colours to print. 

Now my colours were selected I wanted to incorporate them into some sort of design to see how they would sit together with image and text. Originally my idea was to have the bird as a dove, so initially I had it as a white silhouette flying up and out of the cage. I just placed the images simply on a page to give me an idea of how they would look along side text. I tried various type faces out to see which worked best. 

Too bold, perhaps wouldn't appeal to many women. 

Nice hand drawn effect, however too bold and harsh for the message I am trying to portray.

Nice and light yet readable. Is missing some flare and personality however.

Sweet and cute design, doesn't catch your eye however. Type face needs to be more 'mature' and 'powerful'. 

Elegant, eye catching but not the easiest to read.

This typeface has somewhat of a fake innocence to it. The story it is telling is very informed and mature,  however the type face looks innocent and uninformed.

I really like this font, it is bold and legible, however it is missing a aire of elegance to it. 

Chosen font - Ditot - this font fits in perfectly with my vision of the finished product. It is a sleek elegant design, which works well in both upper and lower case. It is suitable for a header and body text.

Next I started looking at how text could work, using the packaging too influence. When the net below is opened new areas are unveiled. Doing a step by step guide could work well on this design because it breaks the information down into small amounts to keep the audience interested. 

I looked at how image and text could work together, however a complicated image such as this needs more than two colours for it to work well. The three colours work well together. 

For the box net there will be '101 reasons to stay single' included inside. I need the information to be clear and easy to read. Also I need to incorporate all this information into the design in such a way that it is interesting and not just a long list of advise. Here are some design ideas for colouring:

Design ideas for logo/slogan.

Final design for packaging net:

The design makes good use of the colour of the stock. For the final print I decided to use watercolour paper. It has a cream shade to it and is a good thickness to fold into robust packaging. After trying many types of paper to see which printed the design best, the watercolour one was by far the best all round paper. It had a nice rustic, yet professional feel to it when printed on.

Initial print testing. The net that I was given wasn't the right dimensions when folded together. Some side were too short and some were too long, so printing on rough paper to see the design in 3D again helped well to establish where needed to be altered on the design.

After I had adjusted these flaws I was ready to print my final design onto watercolour paper. To save on cost and for convenience I printed at home, so print quality is not 100% however I am still happy with the finish.

Final design for sign net:

For this design I had to remember that it is to be printed double sided. Consideration had to be given when thinking how the net would fit together.

My initial print out assembled together fine, with the logo attached and printed on to the reverse side so it showed through when folded together. 

Final design for mail shot net:

This net design is quite intricate so to help me figure out where everything was to be positioned I printed out the net and drew onto the relevant areas with my design ideas.

Because the design was a step by step guide it had to work fluently and systematically.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

Back

And now converted digitally...

I like the final design and think it works well and uses the net to it's advantage. I chose to work with the net design and create triangles and other obscure shapes which fitted in with how the design folds. The bird logo features throughout all three net designs to keep everything tied in together. To create a wider colour palette I used opacity on the brown to help create beiges and creams.