Prompted Post #2 Ethics of Packaging Design

According to FMI (Food Marketing Institute), the average supermarket holds around 40,000 different items. The $600 billion food marketing industry is one of the most prominent users of packaging processes. This industry relies on consumers, distributors, manufacturers, and graphic designers. Product packaging, as a graphic design discipline, is an industry itself; packaging graphic designers follow their own code of ethics to create an authentic and memorable package that will shine on the shelf. There are a few major ethical tips to succeed in packaging design: clarity/simplicity, honesty, authenticity, and shelf impact.

Clarity/Simplicity: Every consumer has essential questions when looking for a product and will only dedicate so much of their time to answer them. It’s important to create a design that easily answers "What is this?", "What will this do for me?", and "Who guarantees that?".

Honesty: Packaging designers often strive to depict the product in the most perfect way imaginable. By doing this, the consumer is being mislead and eventually dissatisfied by the product’s actual attributes. Yes, this is a very tactical way to persuade consumers into purchasing it, but what’s especially important is for the package design to represent the product honestly.

Authenticity: The only way to set a product brand apart from others is to be authentic. Creating a bold, memorable package for the product will catch the consumer’s attention and leave them wanting more from the brand.

 Shelf Impact: Shelf impact is incredibly important because at almost all times, the product is being sold blended next to several other products of the same caliber. This is something that needs to be tested and explored in design trials. Imitating the placement of the design on an actual shelf and surrounding it by other products will give designers an idea of what it will be seen as on the market.

Shelf Impact

Sources Cited

"6 Rules for Packaging Design That Dive off the Shelf -." The Creative Edge 6 Rules for Packaging Design That Will Shine on the Shelf Comments. N.p., 25 July 2012. Web. 06 Feb. 2016.

Emblem, Anne, and Henry Emblem. Packaging Technology: Fundamentals, Materials and Processes. Cambridge: Woodhead Pub., 2012. Print.

Open Post #1 Paper Packaging

Kraft Paper

Plastic, metal, corrugated fiberboard (cardboard), wood, and glass are the most popular materials in packaging; another material that has an abundance of use in packaging is paper. The paper-based industry is extremely important in the U.S. economy with annual product sales of about $115 billion and a job count of over 1.3 million. In my Packaging 101 course, I learned how paper is created and used in the packaging industry. The first form of paper is paperboard; the most commonly used types of paperboard for packaging are Clay Coated News Back, Solid Bleached Sulfate, and Solid Unbleached Sulfate. As shown in these visuals, some of the most common types of paper for packaging are Kraft Paper, Glassine Paper, and Tissue Paper.

Click here to watch how paper is made https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MUGbe6vRpo

Glassine (wax) Paper

Tissue Paper

Sources Cited
"Paper-Based Packaging." Paper-Based Packaging. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Jan. 2016

Prompted Post #1 Breaking Assumptions

How many times is the average college student asked “what is your major?” 

The answer: too many, far too many.

After telling someone what my major is, I'm almost always asked to explain it. That's a lot of explaining. Packaging was recently introduced as an undergraduate degree and is not an option at many universities, being the main reason for its incorrect preconceptions. Most people without knowledge of this field assume that it relates to the handy-man work of boxing and shipping products, I can’t even begin to express how inaccurate that is. 

This major is just about as broad as can be; because of this, the typical things that workers say/do/like/dislike can vary accordingly. In order to justify the incorrect preconceptions and gain insight on workers’ interests, I took a look at “Packaging Technology: Fundamentals, Materials and Processes” and created three character traits most of these professionals might express in their work and what aspect of packaging it relates to:

Efficient: Time-efficiency, cost-efficiency, and purpose. 
Packaging professionals that use these traits in their work are typically found on the supply side of the packaging process. (supply side = technical/scientific/engineering/manufacturing) 
Ex: Creating a package that can be produced quickly and inexpensively without too much trouble.

Tide Pods

Unique: Appearance-based, attraction, relevance, culturally involved.
Packaging professionals that use these traits in their work are typically found on the design side of the packaging process. These types of jobs focus on creating a model that grabs the consumer’s attention and triggers the consumer's emotions. 
Ex: Tide Pods have a package that reflects the look of the actual product, giving consumers an image reference to what they’re buying.

Awareness: Safety, protection, ethicalness.
Packaging professionals that use these traits in their work typically want to create a model that will protect the product at all costs. Of course the package needs protection from being broken, but it also needs to keep account of the product's ability to exposure of certain levels of temperature, humidity, oxygen, and acidity. Many packaging professionals find their best success when being over analytical.

Sources Cited
 Packaging Technology: Fundamentals, Materials and Processes. Cambridge: Woodhead Pub., 2012. Print.