Packaging is definitely one of the most important elements for branding and customer delight. It is not uncommon for customers to go back to a brand because the packaging design stands out and connects with them.

Any brand that has an emotive and memorable packaging design can be sure to build a loyal audience.

But designing such packages is a difficult challenge with customer sentiments and trends changing every year. It takes a specific design and creative mindset to imagine packaging design as a canvas for your brand’s story. 

Kimp has worked on many packaging design projects and knows what hits the sweet spot between timeless and trendy packaging design ideas. 

So here is our recap of the packaging design ideas and trends you need to inspire your brand’s marketing team today! 

Shall we get started? 

Significance of Packaging Design in 2022

Before we dive into the ideas, it is important to understand what a good packaging design can do for your brand. Of course, any sizable investment needs justification. Thankfully, with our years of doling out packaging design ideas, we have enough reasons to pull you to the other side.

So let’s take a look at how packaging design helped Kimp’s clients to date? 

Building the right first impression 

The first impression makes the best impression is an old age proverb most of us are tired of hearing. But what every brand must understand in the fast-paced and competitive business landscape is that you have to ensure your first impression is the right impression. 

Conveying your brand’s values, personality, and product range from a glance is a challenge that most designs and content pieces fall short of. Except for packaging design. Yes, you can tell who you are from a shelf far off with the right packaging design idea. 

Provide a holistic brand experience for ecommerce customers 

As we said, the business world is getting competitive. Providing just a product will not be enough to acquire and retain your customers. They need an experience that interacts with all their senses so that they remember you the longest. 

With the right packaging design idea, you can pull them into your story, your values, and the product’s features so that the unboxing reaches a new level. Bring out the child in them that wants to play with the box more than what is in it. They will come back for that alone. 

Making automation easier 

Even this may seem like something that does not directly impact the customer, it is an important factor that ensures a consistent customer experience. Automation in the packaging manufacturing process is here, and it will do brands a lot of good if they account for it. 

Your packaging design ideas must translate well on the assembly line to manufacture what you want at the speed you want. Automation is your boon for saving costs, improving product delivery speeds, and ensuring consistency. 

A professional packaging design from a team like Kimp Graphics ensures that it works well in the manufacturing process. 

7 Packaging Ideas and Trends to watch out for 

Even when a brand knows that packaging design is important for its success, it’s hard to find the right strategy to elevate the product. Your packaging design must be trendy, timeless, cost-effective, and attractive for your target audience.

When you get all these ducks in a row, you have something to base your next big marketing campaign on. 

So what is trendy right now, and what are your options to jazz up your packaging design? 

Let’s take a look. 

1. Protective Packaging design 

Right off the bat, we are vouching for a packaging design trend that is substance over style. We have spoken about the unboxing experience, and you can see every marketer promoting its value in the whole customer delight scale. 

So, the first thing you want to follow in your packaging design is that the packaging can protect the product. You must choose the right shape, size, and material to ensure the customer receives what they ordered with no damage. Your packaging also has to withstand the pressure of transit and multiple handling. This packaging design trend is especially important for ecommerce brands. 

Kimp Tip: Protective packaging lays a lot of emphasis on the material and shape of the packaging. So before you begin the design process, finalize these and include these in your design briefs for the team to work accordingly. 

2. Flat Illustration packaging design 

We have spoken about the value of creating packaging designs that catch the customers’ fancy and make them fall in love with the brand itself. Emotional connections are your best bet at building brand loyalty. But how do you do that? What is the design element that can make this happen? 

Illustrations, of course. They are even better than including images on your packaging design to evoke emotional responses. But what is really taking the consumer world by a storm is flat illustration. They are simplistic, minimalistic, and attractive icons and drawings. 

Flat illustrations are easy to read, print, and get consistency in print designs. They stand out against any background without being too much in your face. The text accompanying also becomes easier to understand and the whole experience is just extremely pleasant for the customer. 

Kimp Tip: A lot of flat illustration’s charm hinges on the colors you use. Since the design is mostly flat, it is the color that you pick that makes them stand out. In print designs, color can be difficult to get right so work with the design team to use print-friendly colors within the Pantone color scheme. Work with a lot of mockups until you get the design just right. 

3. Minimalistic packaging design 

Building on the theme that simple wins from flat illustration packaging design, the next big packaging design trend to follow is minimalism. Across all marketing design segments, minimalism seems to win and packaging design is no exception. We live in a time when attention spans are low, with customers constantly encountering marketing campaigns and ads. So, you need to take a different approach to stand out. 

Start by picking a theme, a singular central element, and keep the focus on the message and nothing else. When you opt for a minimalist packaging design, customers have nothing to get distracted from. They understand your message instantly, improving your chances of conversion. 

Even during the unboxing experience, minimalism soothes and delights customers letting them enjoy the simple design. 

This minimalistic packaging design by Kimp Graphics attracts the customer by standing out with the White theme. But it has everything that a customer needs to know – the brand, product name, and image to set the expectations. 

Intrigued? Connect with Kimp Graphics to replicate this for your brand. 

4. Sustainable Packaging Design 

Sustainability and planet-conscious behavior is not just one trend to follow, but it is the packaging design trend that your brand needs now. Customer sentiment is very clear, at least from the Gen Z and Millennial generation, they care about sustainability over anything else. 

As per a survey, 42% of US customers want sustainable packaging from a brand when they shop online. This even beat free samples (34%) and personal notes (5%). In the packaging company Swiftpak, 74% of customers indicate they would much rather pay higher for sustainable packaging instead of buying something that harms the environment. 

So, if you want to protect your sales and market reputation, this is what the customers want from you. 

Kimp Tip: It is important that when you choose sustainable packaging for your product that the packaging carries clear instructions on how to use and dispose of (or not) it! Ensure that the design team includes the relevant symbols and instructions prominently to avoid any misunderstanding. 

Just like the example of a packaging design created by the Kimp Graphics team! 

5. Color Pop Packaging Design 

We cannot overstate the value of color in the success of any design, especially print designs. Color guides the customer on how to read, perceive, and engage with any design. So it should be no surprise that the next packaging design trend is entirely based on colors. 

We are here to discuss the color Pop design style that is everywhere in the packaging design industry. So what is color pop? Well, it is what you get from the happy marriage of Pop Art with an explosion of colors. We all love Pop Art, right? We have all grown up with it. 

In this packaging design trend, the packaging uses colorful elements from Pop Art and allows colors to take over the design. If you want to project a cheery and young personality to your customers, then this is the packaging design trend for you. 

It works best for food products, lifestyle products, and even cosmetic brands with a young and vibrant target audience. Experiment with this design style, and the results will surprise you. 

Kimp Tip: The success of color pop lies in choosing the right colors that pair well, suit your brand and the product. Choose colors that harmonize with each other and do not fight for attention a lot. Balance in design is important and can get your message across easily. 

Check our guides on choosing colors for your brand and balance in design to know more! 

6. Digitally connected Packaging Design 

The Kimp team has always maintained that your packaging design is your more important printed marketing material. More often than not, once the customer starts exploring the package, you have their complete attention. So, leverage this space and put your best foot forward. Tell them your story and why you are the right brand for them.

The only issue here is that this can make the packaging design seem overcrowded. But the next packaging design trend takes care of that with a little help from technology. 

In today’s age, all you have to do is include a QR code with an exciting offer for the customer to make them scan and hear you out. 

You can place it on the actual packaging design or include it as part of the insert (as shown in the example below). 

Connecting online and offline worlds is necessary for every brand today! And this is the first step! An easy one at that! 

Kimp Tip: Branding and design consistency can make or break a marketing campaign. So when you choose to include a QR code on your packaging design, ensure that the design is consistent with the landing page design too to avoid customers exiting too soon. 

Work with a team that can do it all, from landing page, branding, and packaging design. The Kimp Graphics team is just a click away! 

7. Luxury Packaging Design 

Brand positioning is very important to stand out and reach the target audience in a competitive market. Your packaging design can help with that, and the next packaging design trend is a great product fit for any brand that wants to appeal to a niche luxury segment. 

Yes, luxury packaging design is our next trend, and we truly think that it is here to stay. The biggest differentiator is this design trend is that it is not all gold and glitters. No, the winning luxury packaging designs we are seeing in the market are all about niche designs, sophistication, and exclusivity more than anything else. 

The smallest design decisions like the color, shapes, or font can set your packaging design apart and help you appeal to your target audience. 

The best packaging design ideas from Kimp – A roundup 

We have explored some of the best and most promising packaging trends to inspire your brand. But we have something more for you. 

Keeping these trends and the current market demands in mind, we have curated some of the best packaging design ideas from Kimp in the last couple of months. These ideas should tell you what the world is doing and help you pick what suits you better. 

Let’s dive right in. 

1. Pure Healthy Packaging Designs 

The health industry is very competitive, to say the least. A lot of effort goes into brand building, establishing trust, and recall so that the brand has an edge over its competitor. So it goes without saying that packaging design is extremely significant here. 

Recently, the Kimp team had the opportunity to work on the packaging design for the Pure Healthy brand. And the team had to work on four separate products under the same brand. So, the design needed to tie the products together while giving them an individual identity. 

The team chose to leverage colors here and chose four different colors for the products but kept the base design the same. 

You can see that everything, right from the branding to the imagery (Carbon chains) and the overall layout, is all the same. And the color choice isn’t random either.

We chose red and pink for the women-centric product, purple for positivity, green for energy, and a mix of yellow and red for the other women’s beauty products. They are in line with color psychology and look good when you line them up together too. 

2. Craft Beer Packaging 

Did you ever think that the labels bars have on their tap to denote drinks also needed design? Or that they fall under packaging design? Well, they do and can be a huge factor in setting the right tone and promoting your brand, especially in the hospitality industry. 

When we worked out the packaging labels for Craft beer packaging, the brief was simple – this was to be an opportunity for the brand to leave the right impression on the customer. And it makes the place much classier than a sloppy handwritten package label. 

Our team chose the design to be a simple and rustic rectangle shape. We kept the textures simple and concentrated on the sleeve design too. Given that we had very little surface area to work with, the team went the minimalistic way but chose the Sans-serif font style to send the right message. 

3. LuxLiv Packaging

Any packaging design for the FMCG industry is a challenge. There are so many regulations and information that the design can end up looking crowded and cluttered. So when we had to design for LuxLiv, we went into the project looking to balance copy and design. 

Food-related products usually come in square and rectangle boxes. The brand is traditional, so we stuck to those shapes. To ensure we can balance aesthetics, we kept the front face all about the product, and the packaging design’s sleeves helped us take care of the regulations. 

It was a clear win-win. Since the packaging was non-transparent, we included product images highlighting the best features on the front for clear communication. 

Leverage Packaging design trends with Kimp

Are you excited about stepping into a new era with these packaging design trends? Great, your brand will be thankful for that. 

The best packaging design idea needs a team that can understand the nuances of your brand and pairs it with the right design techniques. You need someone to dive deep into your vision and make it come alive. 

Kimp Graphics has been delivering outstanding packaging designs for brands worldwide, as you can see from the examples in this blog. If you also want to replicate the results, connect with the team today. Us, being an unlimited graphic design service, you get value for money at every instant. 

Avail unlimited design requests, revisions, and services across a hundred categories with no extra charges for illustrations, infographics, and so on. We have videos too to boost your marketing campaigns. 

Sign up for the free trial now!