On the Positioning Theory of Packaging Design (II)

Knowledge about packaging design positioning theory

For students, the teaching of packaging design should first of all understand the theoretical knowledge of the students. With respect to the design orientation of the packaging, I hereby provide some theoretical points for the following:

Packaging and decoration and packaging modeling have common features in the basic design process, but both have specific characteristics in terms of specific design methods. The former mainly focuses on the effects of the plane visual communication function, while the latter mainly focuses on the container's shape. Functional and stereoscopic visual communication function effects.
Packaging and decorating design is not simply a picture decoration, but must be a combination of specific product information transmission and visual aesthetic communication design. If the modeling structure of the package should mainly accomplish certain material functions, then the packaging and decorating will focus on completing certain spiritual functions.

(a) Creative Ideas

The most important aspect of packaging and decorating design is "creative idea". Creative idea is the soul of design. Creative ideas are what designers should “show” and “how to express” on the screen. A very important point in many good packaging designs is that they can break through and innovate in their ideas. This is just like a comic book creation. A comic book with a fantastic creative style often requires only a good deal of writing. It is a humorous effect that people can think deeply about aftertaste, fun and laughter.

Packaging design is for goods, internal goods and consumer demand are the first, and packaging is subordinate and second. Therefore, the idea of ​​design concept should be closely related to the requirements of the content to the form, that is not only in the art to show the personality characteristics of the product, the personality characteristics of the designer or the consumer group, so that the packaging is novel, unique, infectious, and able to Attract consumers and reflect as far as possible the inherent qualities of the product and its functional superiority.

Before designing ideas, it is necessary to make investigations and preparations for the products and some situations related to the products. The survey contents usually include the following items and contents:

1. Various information about the product (such as raw material, product quality, use, performance and price, etc.);
2. Trademarks (whether famous or more famous);
3, product attributes;
4, sales target;
5, commodity grade;
6. Local customs and practices of product sales;
7. Vertical and horizontal comparison of products (mainly referring to product quality and improvement);
8, packaging container materials, size, size, shape, etc.;
9, the history of the manufacturer, the characteristics of the location, etc.;
10. Information on packaging and decoration of similar products;
11, understand the manufacturer's vision and preferences for product packaging.

For the above items, we can use the list method to sort out what we can understand, find out the needs that can be expressed in the design, and stimulate our creativity.

Generally speaking, the key choices mainly include the three aspects of the trademark number, the product itself and the consumer. Some product packagings with famous trademarks or brands can be marked with trademark brands, such as the “Coca Cola” in the United States; products with more prominent features or packaging of new products can use the product itself as the focus of design performance; and some Product packaging with specific or special consumer groups can focus on consumers. Among them, the performance of focusing on the product itself has the greatest performance. In short, regardless of how they are performed, they should focus on conveying clear information on commodities but the emphasis should not be simply understood as a certain unique factor, but rather a basic tendency. For example, the packaging of a brand-name product may have both a trademark and an image of the product itself. However, in order to highlight that this is a brand-name product, brand name information is quickly passed to consumers, and the focus of the screen should be highlighted. Trademarks.

After finding the focus of performance, it is from what angle to express the key point. This is the deepening after determining the focus of performance. For example, with the trademark and brand as the focus of performance, is it a symbolic image that represents a trademark or a brand, or is it a representation of a trademark or a brand? If the performance of the product itself is the focus, then is it the external image of the product or an inherent property of the product? Does the composition of a commodity represent its functional utility? Because everything has a different perspective, but it is more concentrated to express it from a certain angle, which will benefit the distinctiveness of the performance. For example, the packaging design of “Beauty Sandalwood Soap” focuses on the concept of “Beauty” in terms of concept and creativity. The Tang Dynasty female figure is selected as the expression point of “Beauty”, thus associating consumers with the long history of commodity production. And the noble and functional superiority of the product itself. The specific information of the product is conveyed from a historical and functional perspective. Another example is the design of packaging and decorating of "Taihua Datong Company's Peanut Oil". Its creative concept focuses on the product itself rather than the brand name. The main feature of peanut oil is that peanuts are used as raw materials, and in terms of processing, the characteristics of raw peanuts are used as the performance point of view, and product information is conveyed very clearly. Another example is the packaging design of Jingdezhen blue and white porcelain utensils in Jiangxi. The focus of its creative concept is also the product itself, but the performance angle is not the raw material but the decorative features of the product – the decorative patterns and colors of the blue-and-white porcelain, and the same information transmission of the goods. It is also very strong. The packaging design of the “Coca Cola” beverage in the United States focuses on the key brand name from the perspective of the decorative form of the “Coca'Cola” brand.

After we found the “breakthrough” of the performance angle, the question that followed was to adopt a proper method and form to express it. The focus and perspective of performance is mainly to solve "what to perform"? This is only half of the problem solved, and the way of expression and form is to solve the problem of “how to express”. Good performance techniques and forms of expression are the vitality of design, and can make the entire design “light and shine”.

In packaging and decoration, it is mainly necessary to find ways to express goods (contents) or some of their characteristics. Because everything must have a certain degree of particularity and have a certain correlation with other things. Therefore, if we want to represent a thing and represent an object, there are two basic methods: one is to directly express certain characteristics of the object, and the other is to indirectly express the thing by means of other things related to the object. . The former is called direct performance or direct narration. The latter is called indirect performance or representation.

1. The direct expression method can be performed in the following ways:

(1) Use color, black and white photography.
(2) Use the way of painting.

Painting can also be expressed using realistic techniques, inductive techniques, and exaggerated techniques. The method of induction is the simplification of the subject image. For subjects with more obvious physical features, they are generalized to make the main features of the subject image clearer. In terms of processing methods, the shape and color of the subject can be summarized and summarized.

Summarization is based on simplification and generalization to obtain clear and distinctive characteristics of the subject, and the exaggerated technique is based on the change to obtain the distinctiveness of the subject. The common point of both is to make some changes to the image of the subject. Exaggeration not only has to make a choice, but also has to be emphasized, so that the subject image is unreasonable, but it is sensible and makes the expression technique rich in romantic taste. However, it should be noted that the exaggeration in the packaging and decorating should generally be lovely, lively and interesting, and it should not be used in a vilified form.

(3) How to pack the window

The image, color, variety, quantity, and texture of the product can be revealed directly to the consumer, so that the consumer can psychologically feel confident about the product. The form and location of the window can be varied and eclectic. For example, there is a box design for children's clothing that is used to open windows in the clothing where children's graphics are painted, so that information on the patterns, color textures, etc. of the clothes contained in the boxes is revealed. This not only conveys to the consumers the large size of children's clothing. Some of the information, together with the packaging, played a decorative role and became an integral part of the packaging. Another example is the "Flying Club senior suit" packaging, gift wine packaging, wine chocolate and assorted chocolate packaging, daily necessities packaging, etc., are a good form of window opening, the form of their windows vary, colorful.