Global F&B Packaging Design – Marking Awards 2020 Starts!

网络转载 • 2019年9月10日 23:52 • 餐饮资讯 • 阅读 1

Marking Awards 2020, global food & beverage packaging design award, now starts application. Turn to the end of the article, apply before September 30th, 2019, and enjoy a 30%-off discount!

In your mind, what does the packaging design of food and beverage contain? Label design? Structure and material design? Or product design and brand full case design?

The simpler the question seems, the more confusing it is. We bet that brand owners, design agencies, advertising agencies, and packaging suppliers will answer differently to this question.

It sounds totally right that, for packaging industry, the significance of packaging supply chain is to let professionals address specialized questions. For example, graphic design agencies create labels, industrial design agencies produce structure or product designs, packaging suppliers provide more choices of packaging materials and production lines, and advertising agencies offer brand full case design. Each part is like precision instrument, turning its switch on as soon as they receive the brief from the brand, manufacturing according to the demands.

But wait a minute. Consumers will never buy the unit output from single part of the packaging value chain, at least we haven’t found such cases in the world yet (if you know any, welcome to comment below!). So, the role of brand combining all these parts together in the packaging value chain is far more than just finish a “packaging puzzle”.

The tests of the market are usually cruel and absolute. Even if the label, structure, material, product design and brand full case are all very outstanding when they are viewed separately, their combination may not be so satisfying. Sometimes it does need all the parts to be brilliant, while sometimes a product also has a chance to stand out if it reflects ingenuity or achieves perfection in some part. How many possible combinations and ways to win are there in between? And how should brand owners view the roles of design in different parts? In the 2020 new season, Marking Awards (abbreviated as MA below), global food & beverage packaging design award, will explore the relationship between different design elements of food & beverage packaging with you.

Label Design: Manufacturer of Brand’s Texture

The discussion about “good-looking matters most” makes the industry begin to pay attention to whether the label design is of excellent aesthetics. But good-looking is by no means the only and absolute standard to appraise food label design, texture should be. Different brand positioning and different targeted consumers can be reflected through the labels with different textures.

How many things can texture reflect? It can show the appearance of a country’s supermarkets and the aesthetic level of a nation. Walking into most traditional Southeast Asian markets, we can barely find any food packages maintaining elegant aspects all year around except for “ornate gift box” of festival limited edition. Products in many shelves there give people the feeling that they are ordinary, sold in bulks by weight. But when it comes to European and Japanese markets, it has been a commonplace for them to go after finer details. Be it big or small, most brands have a set of mature and systematic label designs, which highlight the lifestyles and attitudes they want to promote.

Pic: Melt Ice Cream

From: Hunger

Designed by Hunger, Melt, the CBD-infused innovative ice cream brand, is full with texture indetail. The brand meaning of “Melt” is visualized by a large area of seemingly melting colors on the body of box, which can arouse consumers’ appetite for indulging the tips of their tongues. The gold stamping letters give prominence to the features of the product, the symmetrical type setting looks comfortable and elegant, and the logo on the top of the box adopts gold stamping letters again, leaving an extraordinary impression on consumers. Among the various ice creams in the freezer, Melt has shown the texture the brand wants to demonstrate to consumers through label design.

Texture speaks for the content the brand wants to express. The content, which should be given more room to extend, aims to attract targeted consumers at their first glance. Is your label able to convey messages efficiently?

Structure and Material Design: Facilitator of Brand’s Humanization

If texture is acquired, then how can we create a “humanized” brand to establish the emotional connection with consumers? Well, structure and material design can give you a good answer. The key to solve this problem lies in two aspects: ergonomics (whether the product corresponds with the consumers’ using habits) and consumer awareness (whether the product conforms to current consumer awareness). These two aspects can be addressed through the designs of package’s structure and materials. However, while it is an opportunity, it also faces many challenges.

The 2019 package trend report published by Ipsos, the famous consultancy, shows that 91% consumers regard convenience as an important part in packaging design besides appearance and protective function. “Anti-human” designs are adverse for brands to win consumers’ favor. And people are appealing to more convenient and more user-friendly packages. But due to the low iteration speed of manufacturing equipment, fresh structure designs are unable to be produced quickly, hindering the realization of overall structural idea a lot.

However, designers’ ingenuity and creativity can always resolve some teasers.

Pic: Corona’s Stackable Fit Pack

From: Adweek, Xpresion

In June 2019, Corona launched a stackable can package with Leo Burnett, the famous advertising agency. Two spiral circles are separately added to the top and bottom of the can. Consumers only need to put one can vertically on the top of another and screw it tight, so that they can bring the cans with them without using plastic bags. This package of Corona beer complies with consumer awareness of environmental protection and, at the same time, makes the product very interesting through structure design that stimulated consumers to post on social media spontaneously. It serves as a perfect promotion for the brand in the end.

In this article, we’re not going to discuss how loyal consumers are to brands of food & beverage. However, it’s undeniable that no matter in what industries, whether the brand owners are conscientious or not can be sensed by consumers.

Apart from package’s structure, consumers are also very concerned about what materials the food is wrapped by, or what materials the brands choose to pack their products. If it was too early for us to talk about sustainable packages in China two years ago, now under the circumstance of garbage sorting, it is the best time to do this. It can’t be delayed any more for China’s food industry to reacquaint plastic products and sustainable package! MA2020 will pay special attention to innovative structure and material design. Plant-based products, biodegradable food grade materials, creative biological model based on used materials and so on,are all welcomed to enter!

Dare to think and dare to act. Only by that can we subvert and revitalize the industry.

Product Design: Magnifier of Brand’s Core

After we have the label design, structure design of a product, together with fine materials, are we bound to create a good product?

Not necessarily.

Many people think that food packages can stand out devoid of the help of industrial design theories, because what we sell are not domestic appliances or household products that will be used for a long time after consumers purchase them. On the contrary, in most cases, consumers will unpack quickly to eat or drink as soon as they purchase food or drinks.

It is quite reasonable, but only partly correct here.

Because according to the theory above, packages are only used to pack food and the appearance and user experience needn’t be taken into account. We call this mentality as “street stage” of food packages. Why? Because without brand premium, even street vendors can help you pack the food you buy with bags. For those brands seeking every detail of excellence, now that they have worked out best labels and structures, sometimes they just get very close to rather that succeed in touching the consumers in the depth of their hearts. Why does it happen?

At present, there are many design agencies with both capabilities of industrial and graphic design. They aim to achieve real “3D branding” to integrate the presentation of food and beverage package from structure to label. What’ more, many designs with the ability to stir the hearts of people usually combine structure and label ingeniously.

Pic: Golden Spiral Chocolate Package

From: iF

X2 Create Multiple Design created this chocolate package for a French dessert store. To cater to the store’s ocean style, designers drew inspirations from nautilus. They also applied the concept of golden ratio, alluding to the identical taste of every chocolate. Meanwhile, golden ratio is widely believed to bring a comfortable sense of balance. The label is put on the part with neon color. The combination of brand name and neon color is devoid of too many other graphic shapes and words, but it strikes an excellent balance with the structure and presents the brand’s core of seeking truth with an unaffected attitude vividly. As a result, this stunning design can leave a deep impression on consumers.

Brand Full Case Design: Graver of Brand’s Soul

According to the investigation by Kantar in 2018, globally renowned consultancy, Generation Z (post-95 and post-00 generations), one of the main consumption purposes is to purchase “self-awareness”. Generation Z is willing to purchase different brands and products, and experience different lifestyles to find what suits them well. When choosing products, young consumers focus on not only the basic functions of products, but also the selection of brand values and attitudes consistent with their own ideas.

If we say package design is to convey a brand’s spirits, then brand full case design is to shape a brand’s soul. A brand’s values and lifestyles are formed in an all-round way through many aspects including logo, product packages, online display, space design, advertisement and so on, presenting the brand soul in front of consumers in a full-dimensional way. However, before doing this, brand positioning, product features, targeted consumers and brand stories should be taken into full account, all of which help brands find the orientation and methods suitable for their development. All these considerations require systematic design thinking.

Pic: McDonald’s New Visual Identity

From: AdAge

Of course, as a brand keeps developing, the demands on brand design are also changing. Take McDonald’s as an example. When it comes to this fast-food brand, we will spontaneously think of “golden arches” and distinctive color matching of red and yellow. Its brand image has been deeply rooted among people. But the image of this world’s largest multinational chain restaurant in advertising was chaotic: disordered fonts and brand colors, inconsistent using standards of brand images, which had undoubtedly damaged the brand assets.

The good news is that McDonald’s had started to remold its global visual identity with Turner Duckworth since last year. After analyzing the core values it wanted to convey, McDonald’s found that they were more than a place offering food. Its brand concept of happiness had gone deep into the hearts of the people. So, McDonald’s decided to bring happiness back to consumers in the form of visual design and interaction.

Finally, Turner Duckworth employed “golden arches” as the core elements, determined the color standards that yellow was the principal hue supplemented by red, unified the typeface as Speedee, and extended the applications of the logo. Its brand concept has penetrated into many aspects of our life and its brand image has become more fledged in consumers’ hearts.

Reviewing the analysis above, we can find that label, structure, material, product and brand full case design respectively shape the brand image extrinsically (texture and humanization) and intrinsically (core and soul).

During the first three years’ holding of Marking Awards, we have spared no effort to prove the importance of packaging design and the commercial value of design to the food industry. However, from creation to maintenance and to subversion and remolding, the design of food & beverage brand and package will take a long time to finish and need constant exploration and great caution.

In the 2020 new season, we’d like to collect excellent works in four categories including label design, structure and material design, product design and brand full case design from global food & beverage brands, design agencies, advertising agencies and packaging suppliers, exploring design’s various possibilities to help brands stand out!

MA Resident Juries

Marking Awards Visual Partner

Website：https://www.l3branding.com

How to Apply

Click “Read More” at the end of the article on the bottom left, or copy and visit the application website (https://jinshuju.net/f/hQkJV7) to submit your works. To view application procedure, awards details and previous excellent works, welcome to visit MA website (http://markingawards.com/en/).