VISUAL HIERARCHY AND GRID DEVELOPMENT IN PACKAGING DEISGN

Almost everything we buy today is packaged in some kind of way. This is not only to protect the product, but also to brand and inform the consumer. Packaging design is a very important part of the design process, it is the packaging that catches the eye of the consumer, or even persuades the consumer to make a new purchase.

Before the emergence of digital technologies such as photo editing software, layout programmes and automated printers, packaging design was a fairly long process. As manual letterpress printing requires patience, time, and materials, much of the packaging designs were quite artistic and ornamental in style. This may be due to the time and effort required to manually create and produce a package design. Since this process was fairly time consuming, designers would spend more time creating their designs and decorating with flourishes and illustrations. Visual hierarchy was very important, as it needed to most effectively represent the product, as the packaging design would remain for some time.

In recent times, visual hierarchy and grid systems have been applied much more to packaging design as technology has allowed for fast and easy formatting. The ornamental style seen in the previous examples has since disappeared from many contemporary designs, as more information can now be applied to the package, resulting in more branding for the product.

Digital technologies have also allowed for constant variation. This allows companies to change and adapt their product’s packaging fairly easily using a style guide and grid format. This chocolate packaging exemplifies the impacts technology has made in visual hierarchy and grid. Each chocolate is individually packaged and designed so that the consumer can identify which is which. The large bold numbers act as identifiers, whilst the small type describes all the necessary information about the product. Compared to older packaging designs, these chocolate contain more information and can be simplified due to the usability of digital formatting.

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/06/02/beautiful-and-expressive-packaging-design/

http://lovelypackage.com/vintage-packaging-beer-cans/

http://www.thedieline.com/blog/2010/12/9/vintage-packaging-pedro-cut-plug.html