Top 10 Luxury Packaging Cues
On keeping on the premium subject, here is a great sum up of the top 10 luxury packaging cues spotted on The Dieline.
- QUALITY CONTROL: No matter how well your design communicates luxury on screen or in photographs, the tangible mass produced package is what has to deliver the goods. Understanding how climate impacts materials and print processes at every stage of production through final user interaction is critical to understanding luxury packaging.
- ANTICIPATION: Creating mystery, romance, and elevating suspense utilizing a well orchestrated unveiling process walks the fine line between luxury, and over-packaging. The idea of opening a box and revealing the final product immediately, leaves much to be desired.
- HERITAGE: The current trend of minimalist design and discreet luxury began prior to the recession and became the go to luxury brand strategy post-recession. The complete opposite of flaunting logos, prestige brands instead focus on projecting a look and feel rooted in the brand’s heritage visually communicating their story.
- CONTRAST FINISHES: Light interacts with materials and finishes differently. Always insure that your stock is smooth and crisp, consistent in color, and evenly distributes light across the sheet without imperfections regardless of texture.
- CLOSURES: Luxury products require the exact opposite of commodity products. A well designed layered unveiling process to build suspense up to the final reveal in the user’s personal environment.
- TACTILE: Allow your fingers to do the walking. You will discover that tactile design features are able to create brand-defining cues.
- HAPTIC: Luxury can be recognized through both touch and the number of hand positions required to interact with packaging.
- OLFACTIVE: Packaging designed with a thoughtful unveiling process cognizant of powerful sensory cues, can transport users and create memorable signature olfactive moments regardless of environment.
- AUDIBLE: Consider every sound your packaging makes, each sound provides you the opportunity to fine tune the perceived value of your packaging design, and therefore the brand.
- PACK INTERACTION: Delaying instant gratification, through user initiated discovery of the details and functionality behind a layered unveiling process can lead to stronger brand impressions by creating a memorable sense of heightened suspense, in an otherwise mundane experience.