Avoid These 11 Packaging Design Mistakes to Excel in Your Business

Packaging has become a staple in the export businesses as well as in the delivery hassles. You can’t keep its functionality out of the picture. Since it’s highly significant, you must avoid inevitable packaging design mistakes while making it. 

In this article, we’ve enlisted eleven packaging design mistakes to excel in your business. Knowing about them will enable you to work more diligently on your designs. Furthermore, your customers will be happier, and your business will remain edgy in the competitive market.

Let’s find out those mistakes in the following. 

• Misplaced Logos or Labels

Misplacing brand logos or labels is one of the most common mistakes one can make while designing packaging. If you aren’t careful about this particular factor, you may compromise the brand value. If the customers cannot recognize the brand logo or label while receiving and unwrapping the boxes or packages, their faith might wane. 

In other instances, customers might tear the logo part on the package if it’s hidden under the custom printed tape. 

• Overlooking KISS

KISS stands for ‘Keep it simple, stupid,’ and conveys the message of opting for simple designs worth the value and price one can ask for. You mustn’t overlook this norm of packaging design. 

Moreover, you must consider user-friendliness at the end-users end. Considering that, you must design or instruct your packaging designer to make it simple, safe, and high quality. 

Remember, KISS doesn’t necessarily refer to minimalism; it’s about effortless use of the package or box after buying a product. 

• Prioritizing Aesthetics

Focusing more on the aesthetic designs of packaging can sometimes prove counterproductive. You have to understand why packaging is important for a product. For instance, if a customer finds the product box attractive but struggles to unwrap it due to complex design, then the design purpose isn’t properly served. Also, if you’re concentrating more on eye-catching designs rather than protection, that too, will work against the business value. 

• Being Too Plain and Generic

Keeping the design plain and simple might go with many product holders. However, if you do the same with your packaging, your customers may get a different brand value than they seek. You must integrate comprehensive design with meaningful elements no matter how expensive or classy your product is. 

For instance, designing based on text-only may not be as appealing as adding a beautiful 3D logo or figure to express the product type. In short, ensure your target customers get what your product is all about at first glance when they receive the package. 

• Choosing Wrong Packaging Materials

This is a common mistake most companies make to save money or sometimes due to wrong design plans— wrong packaging materials. 

Harmful materials have adverse effects on the environment. Besides, if your packaging isn’t capable enough to support products or goods, there’s a good reason to avoid such packaging design. You should consider corrugated packaging since it can hold heavy and fragile products during transportation. 

• So Much for Packaging

Making the packaging design complicated is never a good sign of achieving the optimum brand value. You have to think about what your end users will feel and experience about unwrapping the package or box. Don’t go for designs that require too much time and hassle. Besides, packaging with too many small parts like paper, plastic wrappers, corkshit, etc., can contribute to excessive production costs and annoyance on the customers’ end. An ideal design should focus on reducing packaging waste, not increasing it. 

• Neglecting Typos

This is a typical mistake of many packaging industries or companies that need to export goods across international borders. Sometimes, typos may appear on the packaging if the designer isn’t aware of the correct spelling, and sometimes, it happens sheerly out of carelessness. In both instances, you must be careful not to make this mistake as this may ruin your reputation in the business. It shows you’re totally oblivious to your customers’ reputation, money, and time. 

• Wasting Materials

Some packaging looks heavy, and they truly are because of lots of stuff inside. You have to understand that customers don’t want excess waste in their houses through unwrapping boxes. Furthermore, putting together too much stuff in different dimensions of packaging makes it more complicated. This may be good for puzzle boxes, not customer-friendly transport or delivery packages. 

• Design Wrong Type of Box

Oftentimes, designers come up with advanced packaging designs now and then. But they forget to keep one thing in mind— the compatibility of the boxes with the products to carry inside. 

If you’re not producing reliable packages for long-distance transit, making attractive designs is useless. Your corporate and retail customers won’t love receiving broken or torn packages for their valuable products. 

• Being Tricky about Packaging Size

There’s a common norm to trick customers with oversized packages. This has been in the business for ages. However, today, it’s all about how optimized a packaging design you can make, keeping your customers’ priorities on top. 

If your customers find a much smaller product inside than the box size, it’s like making a fool out of them for big money. This will not only get you bad reviews but also plummet your sales and goodwill in no time.

• Oddly Measured White Space

A white space in a package is the strategically kept space to put products inside safely. Simply, the product inside will take the space as per its size, leaving a portion empty, called the white space. 

Nonetheless, if your packaging design has white space that only puts the product inside at risk of breaking or scarring, don’t apply it. Remember to keep symmetrical spaces inside the boxes, so the products are placed in balance with minimum risk of breaking. 

Key Takeaways

If you maintain carefulness while designing your packaging system, you will end up with minimum risks of breaking goods. You must value your customers’ products. Hence, an optimum packaging design ensures your commitment to your customers.

You must’ve also realized how important a good packaging system is to stay afloat in the competitive market. So, avoid the eleven mistakes we’ve shared to excel in your business.