What Makes For Great Packaging?

By utilizing interesting and unique packaging, you can differentiate your product from the competition -- particularly when the products aren't all that different to begin with. But how do you get your packaging to be interesting and unique? As with all creative projects, the two main elements are creativity and budget. If you have a wealth of both, then you should -- theoretically -- end up with a winner.

Unfortunately, most of the time we're inhibited by a very specific dollar amount that's been allocated to our project. Also, time constraints combined with pressure can tap all of your creative resources, so creating a winner is not just simply knowing the correct recipe. To create successful packaging you need to have have all of the aforementioned ingredients and you need to know how to use them correctly.

Most importantly with regards to packaging, we can't forget that our finished piece also needs to be functional. This means that it can't just look good, it also needs to securely hold and deliver its contents to your consumer. Initially packaging may serve as an enticement to purchase a product, but ultimately the real consumer interest lies in the content.

I first studied packaging at The H.S. of Art & Design and then again at Parsons School of Design. I still remember measuring, cutting, and assembling my first dodecahedron from scratch. I feel very fortunate to have studied these sorts of old-school skills, which are no longer widely used due to changes in technology.

Unfortunately, many traditional skills are no longer taught since they serve no practical application. On the opposite end of the spectrum are those people who never updated their skills by learning about computers and technology.

While students today have a wealth of opportunities available for learning about new technologies, traditional skills like drafting, typography, and 35mm photography are becoming harder to find. There's definitely something to be said about the personal growth that occurs creatively when you also understand why something is done a particular way and how we got to where we are today. For instance, knowing why the dodge and burn tools in PhotoShop are labeled as such. Knowing this may simply enlighten you to the origins of their names, but it may also open your mind up to experimenting with new solutions.

In many ways, my generation had the best of both worlds -- we were the bridge between skills that were coming to the end of their practical application and technologies that were just developing.

Some of the earlier work that I was involved in after college was packaging for Revlon. Nothing too fancy though -- mostly edits to backing boards and existing concepts. While this work helped to pay the bills, I was more interested in utilizing the skills I had learned about in school to do something more creative. As a result, I started designing my own packaging -- mostly for a variety of media projects.

This section contains samples of projects that I've contributed to and/or created over the past seventeen years.