“Pretty” isn’t enough. What really makes for good packaging?

In marketing practice, packaging is all too often reduced to its visual aspects. Discussions tend to focus on color, typography, or logo size. While these elements are significant, they represent only a fraction of a much broader issue.

Research conducted by McKinsey in 2025 – surveying over 11,000 consumers across 11 markets – reveals that when evaluating packaging, key criteria remain product safety, durability, ease of use, information clarity, and packaging resilience. Aesthetics and environmental considerations are important, but they do not exist in isolation from core functionality.

Packaging design should begin with an understanding of the product and its requirements.

What does it need protection from? Light, moisture, temperature, air exposure, or mechanical damage? How long must it retain its properties? How will it be transported and stored? Does the packaging need to be opened and closed repeatedly? Is the product consumed all at once or over an extended period?

These questions might seem more technical than marketing-oriented. In reality, they directly impact the consumer experience and brand perception.

If the packaging leaks, is difficult to open, deforms during transport, or makes using the contents awkward, even the best graphic design cannot compensate for these flaws.

That is why one of the fundamental questions in a packaging brief should be: what specific function is the new packaging intended to perform?

This shifts the focus from aesthetics to the value the packaging is meant to create.

Marketing naturally focuses on the store shelf. That is where the battle for attention, recognition, and consumer choice plays out.

However, for the user, the purchase is just one stage of the interaction with the packaging.

Later, it must be opened, gripped, carried, poured, squeezed, resealed, stored, or used up completely. It is precisely at this stage that the actual user experience of the packaging begins.

Heinz remains a prime example. The introduction of the upside-down ketchup bottle was, first and foremost, a functional solution. It wasn’t the graphics that changed, but the way the product was used. The design was adapted to natural user behavior, eliminating the need to wait for the ketchup to flow toward the cap.

It is a simple example, but it effectively illustrates the essence of good design: a solution should stem from the actual way a product is used.

Therefore, a marketer working on packaging should view the consumer not only in the store but also in real-life, everyday situations.

Can the packaging be opened with one hand? Does the closure provide a clear signal that the product is secured? Is dispensing precise? Can the product be stored conveniently? Does the packaging make it easy to use up the entire contents?

Shape, texture, weight, the opening method, and the closure mechanism are all elements of the brand experience as well.

In a world where a significant portion of brand interactions is digital, packaging remains one of the few touchpoints where the consumer physically experiences the brand.

The front of the package is a space with very limited communication capacity.

At the same time, many people within an organization want to use it to convey their own content. Marketing wants to showcase the brand; sales, the promotion; R&D, the product innovation; and the legal department, the mandatory information.

The consumer, however, has limited time and attention.

Therefore, effective packaging design is not about fitting in as much information as possible, but about establishing the right hierarchy for it.

During a brief encounter with the package, the consumer should be able to answer four basic questions: what is the brand, what is the product, which variant is it, and why is it worth choosing?

Other content can be moved to a secondary level of communication.

If a brand tries to convey too much information on the front of the package at once, the problem is not always the graphic design. Often, the root cause is a lack of a clear marketing decision regarding priorities.

Good packaging enforces discipline.

This issue becomes even more critical in an omnichannel environment. Today, a product exists simultaneously on a physical shelf, in e-commerce search results, and as a thumbnail on a smartphone screen.

This leads to another principle: one should not design a single SKU; one should design a system.

A single mock-up might look perfect, but the true quality of the system only becomes apparent when the portfolio expands to include additional variants, weights, premium and value versions, multipacks, limited editions, and adaptations for other markets.

A good packaging system should clearly define which elements build the brand, which signal the category, and which differentiate the variants.

In this way, portfolio growth strengthens the system rather than gradually undermining it.

Coca-Cola offers one of the most famous examples of using packaging as a brand asset.

The 1915 brief called for a bottle so distinctive that it could be recognized by touch in the dark—or even by its fragments.

This represents a remarkably modern approach to branding.

The goal was not merely to create an attractive shape; the aim was to create a form that consumers would unequivocally associate with the brand.

As a result, the bottle’s shape became one of the world’s most recognizable distinctive brand assets.

This example illustrates a practical rule worth applying during packaging design and redesign: what remains of the brand if the logo is removed from the package?

Would it still be recognizable through its shape, color, structure, proportions, typography, layout, or a unique opening mechanism?

If the packaging becomes anonymous once the logo is covered, the design may be visually appealing but lack sufficient branding strength.

This is particularly important in an era of rapidly shifting design trends.

Minimalism, pastel colors, matte finishes, or simplified typography may be aesthetically current, but if an entire category adopts the same stylistic elements, a brand can easily lose its distinctiveness.

Design should evolve, but brand development should not entail the systematic removal of elements that consumers have learned to recognize over the years.

After all, branding is not solely about generating novelty.

To a large extent, it is about consistently building brand recognition and memory.

One common mistake in packaging management is focusing solely on optimizing the unit cost.

Packaging might be a few euro cents cheaper, but if it is more prone to damage, moves more slowly along the production line, hinders storage efficiency, or reduces the number of products that can fit on a single pallet, that saving may prove illusory.

Therefore, when designing packaging, it is essential to analyze the total system cost rather than just the cost of the component itself.

Marketers should, at the very least, understand concepts such as damage rate, line efficiency, cube efficiency, and pallet efficiency.

A difference of just a few millimeters in dimensions can alter how a master carton is utilized. Saving a few grams of material per unit can translate into significant material savings when dealing with millions of items. A different structural design might allow for better use of transport space.

The iPhone 12 serves as a prime example. By removing the charger and headphones from the box, Apple significantly reduced the packaging size. The company stated that this change enabled them to transport up to 70% more boxes on a single pallet.

This demonstrates that well-designed packaging can simultaneously improve economics, logistics, and environmental impact.

That is why, during the design process, it is worth asking not only “How much does the packaging cost?” but also “What impact does it have on the entire value chain?”

There is also another crucial aspect to consider: prototyping.

In packaging design, an attractive render can be misleading. On screen, the material has a perfect texture, the closure functions flawlessly, the colors are spot-on, and the product is always viewed under controlled conditions.

Reality is far more demanding. While designing the packaging for the Xbox Adaptive Controller, Microsoft went through over 100 iterations of individual elements, testing solutions with users who have limited mobility as well.

This is a great illustration of the principle: prototype first, final design later.

Packaging must be opened, closed, turned over, squeezed, placed alongside competing products, photographed with a phone, packed into a shipping carton, and tested for transport.

The physical experience cannot be verified solely on a screen.

Brown paper, a beige color palette, a leaf symbol, and a matte finish create a highly recognizable code for “eco-friendliness” today.

However, this does not automatically equate to a low environmental impact.

A reliable assessment of packaging should consider the amount of material, its weight, recyclability, the proportion of recycled content, the number of materials used, transportation methods, product durability, and actual collection and processing infrastructure.

Therefore, sustainability in packaging should not be treated merely as an aesthetic choice.

It is, first and foremost, a design, technological, and operational challenge.

The LEGO example illustrates this well. Replacing plastic bags with paper ones might have appeared to be a simple decision regarding materials. In reality, the company tested around 180 types and formats of paper.

The material had to work with existing packaging machinery, withstand the production and transport processes, perform reliably under varying humidity conditions, and remain user-friendly.

LEGO also tested over a dozen prototypes with children and parents.

This offers an important lesson: more sustainable packaging cannot be designed in isolation from functionality.

In many cases, reducing the amount of material used is even more important than simply swapping one material for another.

Before asking, “What can replace plastic?”, it is worth answering the question: is this element actually necessary?

Concepts such as right-sizing, lightweighting, and elimination should become standard terms in the language of packaging marketing.

For years, Apple has been reducing box sizes and eliminating plastic components, films, and protective elements. In its 2026 environmental report, the company states that new products are now shipped in packaging that is 100%… …on fibers.

One of the most important questions in the design process should therefore be: what can we eliminate without compromising the packaging’s functionality?

The growing importance of this approach is also driven by regulations.

The EU’s Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) began to apply on August 12, 2026. In the coming years, companies will face increasingly detailed requirements regarding, among other things, packaging minimization, recycled content, reuse, and design for recycling. “Design for Recycling” criteria are set to take effect in 2030.

This means that the moment packaging ceases to fulfill its original function becomes an integral part of the design process.

To wrap things up, here are a few tips based on our experience working with packaging.

First, when designing product packaging, check out the competition on the shelf. The look and functionality of your packaging will determine the buyer’s choice. Your product will either win or lose the battle on the shelf, which is why packaging design is so crucial.

Second, consider whether your product will be part of an extensive portfolio; if so, think about the entire portfolio, the product categories, and how to differentiate them from the buyer’s perspective. Use research to verify whether buyers understand the structure you are proposing and if your message is clear to them.

Third, identify trends and find a unique concept that helps your product stand out on the shelf. This could be the way the product is displayed, an additional packaging function, or an unusual shape.

Fourth, analyze logistics and outer packaging requirements. Giving these aspects careful thought will make life easier for many people 🙂