Abstract: With the development of social economy, the sales of goods and the shopping habits of consumers are changing. Packaging designers should start from the market and study the information on the products themselves, consumer objects and competitors, and strive to design the works to convey the unique characteristics of the product brand characteristics, functions, quality, reputation, use of objects, and obtain consumer recognition. In order to win the market.
Keywords: market awareness; moral integrity; brand personality; people-oriented; competition; innovation
Since the reform and opening up, profound changes have taken place in Chinese society. Today, China has entered a new era of building a well-to-do society in an all-round way and comprehensively promoting the socialist modernization drive. As China joins the ISA, the wave of global economic integration has rushed forward and more and more foreign products are trying to seize the Chinese market. More "Made in China" is going to the world. International cultural circulation is also taking shape. Faced with the new situation, commodity packaging designers must focus on the new features, new situations, new ideas, and advancing with the times in the development of Chinese society in order to design a product packaging design that meets the needs of the current development of the Chinese market economy.
Once upon a time, the situation of “first-rate products, second-rate packaging, and third-rate prices†caused many people of insight to feel sad about the backwardness of China's packaging industry. How many people are actively rushing to change this situation and appeal to many parties. Therefore, in a short period of more than ten years, from hardware to software, from introduction to R&D, from reference to independent design, China's packaging industry has achieved unprecedented development. However, when we see results, we cannot ignore the problems.
The first is the lack of market awareness among some designers and the lingering subjective aestheticism in design. Due to historical reasons, the teaching of packaging design in our country started relatively late. In related professional colleges and universities, the specialized talents cultivated by the relevant colleges still have heavy painting traces. The designs are often overlooked in design and painting. The essential difference between the two cannot be grounded in realizing the status quo in China, and it is separated from the reality of the market, so that its design has become a castle in the air and can only be appreciated by oneself. Second, some designers lack the spirit of innovation and their works lack personality. Going into the supermarket, it is not difficult to see from the dazzling array of shelves that there are quite a few packages of goods that have similar faces. Behind these similar faces is the problem of some of our packaging designers. Some packaging designers sometimes talk about European and American styles. They follow the trend of Japan and South Korea, worship blindly, and follow the trend. They do not pursue their own designs and do not explore their own paths. Over time, they may lose themselves.
In addition, some designers lack moral responsibility. Malicious plagiarism, false exaggerations, and other undesirable phenomena occur from time to time, and moral and irresponsible things are inconvenient for immediate interests. Although only a handful, the impact is very bad. These problems are inconsistent with the needs of China's social development for packaging design. In particular, some designers' market awareness, innovation awareness, and weak legal awareness have yet to be solved. The author believes that as a packaging designer in a new era, in addition to a deep cultural heritage, distinctive personality, a wide range of interests and preferences, it should also focus on the characteristics of the current Chinese society, have a wealth of market experience, and on this basis The ability to accurately predict and judge. In the face of a fiercely competitive market, adherence to the principle of moral integrity and the use of reason to overcome emotions, all design should proceed from the product itself and proceed from the needs of the market. A good package design work, in addition to giving people a sense of beauty, is also a vehicle for conveying a variety of information on product brand features, functions, quality, reputation, and use objects. Its ultimate goal is not to appreciate. But for sales; not for short-term benefits, but for long-term market demand. How can we adapt to the needs of China's social development and design a good packaging design? The author discusses some of the shallow views from the following aspects.
Study the product itself (excavation subject)
The basic fact is that China is accelerating its integration into the process of world economic integration. This process not only brings a lot of business opportunities to Chinese companies, but also has a long period of time due to the gradual opening up of the market. After the battlefield "wolf". Facing the strong impact of foreign products on the national industry, what do we counterattack? Price or quantity? neither. What we need is a brand. Personalized brand is the basis for products to win the market, and product packaging is an important part of the company's implementation of brand strategy. From a dialectical point of view, there are no two identical products in the world. As the external appearance of the product, packaging design should reflect the unique personality of the product as the most important, and different brands of products must be "tailor-made" to be just right. Therefore, before the product packaging design, the "degree" process can not be lacking.
The first step is to look. Take a peek at all the customer’s offerings for your product
Data, from which to extract and sort out useful information, such as product features, main features, consumer objects, market conditions, etc., will have a general understanding of the product.
The second step is to ask.
To be precise, it is to communicate with customers in depth. From the customer's point of view, he will tell you about product information that he considers important. But this is not enough, because some customers do not pay attention to the level or where he thinks it is not important may be a breakthrough in packaging design. The author once encountered such a thing. A small winery allowed me to design several wine packages. For this reason, the director specifically introduced me to the product situation, enumerated the advantages of the product, and left me with a lot of information on honor certificates, trophy medals, leadership and celebrity inscriptions. Faced with a lot of information, I couldn't find the packaging design entry point for this kind of wine. So I took the problem and asked the factory director to communicate again. I learned that due to economic reasons, the factory did not introduce advanced production lines for a long time. To a large extent, it still retains the traditional brewing process. This seems a bit embarrassing to the factory manager. The things mentioned to the outsiders later became the starting point for my packaging design. A simple, authentic, natural and personalized decoration product presented to me. From this we can see that only when we communicate with customers in a targeted way can we discover what we want. At the same time in the communication process, you can also understand the customer's opinions and opinions on product packaging design. Although their understanding is not necessarily comprehensive, they are based on certain market experience and are worth learning from.
The third step is to find.
Any product does not exist in isolation, there will be its development history, direction of evolution and so on. Liquor, for example, has a long history and profound culture. This is the essence that wine has produced after long-term accumulation in the long course of human history. It is the commonality of wine and it is a place that distinguishes it from other products; Discover the personality of the brand. Take wine as an example. For example, Maotai and Wuliangye, both of which belong to alcohol. However, their historical origins, cultural backgrounds, manufacturing processes, tastes and tastes are all different, and their brand image is very different. We know that packaging design is a part of the brand image. Each product packaging design work must reflect the commonality of the material, and more of the personality of the brand. This is exactly what the designers are looking for, thus concretizing and differentiating “goodâ€.
Through the above detailed and in-depth "degree" process, I believe that the product has gradually become concrete and vivid from the initial conceptualization. Designers can only truly reflect the content and characteristics of the product based on the packaging designed on this basis, giving it unique personality and connotation, attracting customers, triggering recognition, and generating self-promotion.
(to be continued)