Fashion Packaging Now

In this age when time is measured in nanoseconds, consumers may find it hard to keep up with the trends, and nowhere is this more obvious than in the fashion industry, which is nothing if not trendy. In order to maintain and grow their positions in the ever-changing fashion marketplace, fashion manufacturers and retailers must establish strong brands that resonate with the consumers through the "complete package" experience-from attracting consumers with the store-front designs and advertisements to falling in love with the dress, trying it on, peeking at the price tag, and paying for the purchase, to walking out of the store smiling, carrying a specially designed shopping bag.

Whereas many stores may think the sales process is over, savvy marketers continue to promote brand exposure. They influence shoppers to not only love the merchandise itself, but also to appreciate the decorative packaging, which can include bottles, tubes, boxes, shopping bags, or other imaginative containers. So after removing or using the merchandise, shoppers can reuse that leftover packaging for other purposes. The empty shoe boxes are reused for home decoration or storage purposes. That cool shopping bag turns into another fashionable bag. This extra after-sales usage puts additional, invisible value on top of the merchandise. Studies show that more than half of customers will pay more for a fashion product when the transaction makes them feel that the manufacturer/retailer has added something special. Here's where the packaging design comes into play.

In the ideal sales experience, the packaging designer does the important work of not only maintaining consistency across brand image, but also in designing an attention-grabber that influences shoppers toward final-and sometimes future-purchase decisions. Therefore, to be consistent with fashion trends, packaging designers in the fashion industry must hink and design like fashion designers.

What's "in"? Design Trends

Consumers often pursue rarity. However, visual design and fashion are both fickle. When one design becomes more common, there is always another corresponding design that becomes more valuable because it is rare and stands out from the same crowd.

The word "organic" is used all over, not only to describe what we eat, but also to describe what we see. In the graphic world, organic often means free style and originality. Here are two main organic trends:

Most people don't bother to open those heaps of printed junk mail, but they will open mail that was handwritten and carefully sealed like a special invitation. Why? Because the handwriting shows that the senders made the effort to write it out longhand instead of using computer-generated copy and bulk-mail printing. But for millions of commercial mailers who mail even more millions of printed pieces, handwritten copy would be an impossibility. But there is a solution that approximates real handwriting: the handwriting font for the computer. Font designers have been busy creating fonts that mimic all sorts of handwriting styles. As handwriting fonts become more popular for commercial projects, the use of a personal writing style gains importance to continue the "personal" theme and set the piece apart from the competition.

What makes a signature so personal? Everyone has his or her own unique handwriting style. Handwriting, whether script, cursive, or print style, always provides interesting strokes that no existing font can duplicate. Every letter "a" of a computer font is identical to every other letter "a" of the same font no matter how many times it is printed. But when a person writes by hand, that isn't true. People aren't machines, but the quirkiness of real handwriting makes it fun to read, and it's dynamic. Calligraphy is widely used in Asian characters. Its brush strokes can be thick, thin, straight, curved, neat, or grungy. Roman alphabet hand lettering tends to be suave or twirly, and it has a fancy strike out.

To make your designs unique, think about the "trend rule" mentioned earlier. When one thing gets too popular, a new one is rare and therefore more valuable. While computer handwriting fonts are widely used, a handmade personal handwriting style takes design further and stands out even more because it is so special, original, and unique. Of course, it takes designers more effort to produce it. The designer must hand draw, scan, digitalize, and then finally edit it as an image. But it is so original that none can duplicate it.

Royalty-free stock photos tend to be pretty cookie-cutter. After years of using such photos for convenience and cost effectiveness, designers and their clients have begun to find original and organic graphics more appealing. Audiences are increasingly appreciative of a unique design that tells viewers "You are so special" and "Only for you." Unique styles of illustration are spectacular, and they often become the brand icons that extend to all of the company's product lines. However, when these illustrations are used throughout all the product lines, designers must be cautious about consistency. For example, children's clothing store uses the simple outline illustration to correspond to the theme of being a superhero of an astronaut, firefighter, or driver.

The trend toward nostalgia for the past doesn't end with old-fashioned handwriting. When everyone else is trying to figure out how to draw digitally on a computer, innovative designers think in the opposite direction and revert to traditional media: paper and brush. Natural paper effects can never be replaced, but they can be reproduced for today's digital world. Traditional media artwork can be transferred to digital and become a part of the editing process.

Influenced by the free-hand lettering style, designers introduced wiggly illustration that became original design elements. Unique illustration trends include both avant-garde and old-fashioned styles. Using an old-fashioned style doesn't mean choosing one that is outdated or unpopular. It usually means harking back to a particular period when busy, ornate elements were popular. Their use in a contemporary setting gives viewer a nice visual surprise.

In this informational internet world, when pixel advertising costs more than a giant billboard on the highway, and shoppers can view all merchandise on one small cellphone screen, all visuals become ASAP , "as simple as possible" as well as "as soon (fast download) as possible". The easiest data to process is small in file size. To keep it small, the designer should also use simple color and shape. Today, the desire for simplicity influences everything from the corporate website to the company identity to almost everything else, including packaging design.

The Dieline Packaging Design Award predicts that the trend in packaging design will be essentialism. When "less is better," it affects both shapes and colors. The shapes will be simple and geometric and the colors will be flat.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in the past 10 years in the United States, packaging waste declined from 36% of total waste to 30%. This was due to use of fewer materials, which resulted in a reduced environment impact. Other contributors to the reduction were recycling and the use of energy recoverable source materials. People everywhere are becoming more concerned about the environment. So the new mandate for fashion packaging is to be eco-friendly. Use packaging made from sustainable and recyclable materials. The use of recycled paper and cardboard is appreciated too, as is soy-based ink for print materials. Something that both clients and shoppers don't want is unnecessary packaging, which adds more cost and more waste.

If "less is better" is the trend, then making the materials simple will be eco-friendly. Not only are fewer materials good for environment, the project could also cost less. Puma's new shoe box design combines the shoebox and the bag. The box itself is so easy to flatten that shoppers can easily recycle it. The topless shoebox not only saves on materials usage, but it also allows shoppers to easily peek at the shoes and then try them on.

A real coup for packaging designers is to create packaging that can be reused. This feature scores on two counts: shoppers have gotten something extra that is useful, and it's also a walking advertisement for the brand wherever the shopper takes it. For example, LuLulemon Athletica makes workout clothing that is packaged in an attractive tote bag that customers frequently take to their yoga classes. That's free placement marketing for LuLulemon Athletica. The reusable bag for Arrels a Barcelona based footwear maker, can be widely used everywhere the target buyers are.

Reusable bag materials can be canvas, woven synthetic fibers, or thick plastics that are more durable than disposable plastic or paper bags. (Disposable plastic bags have already been outlawed in many states, and others plan to do so, which adds to the need for more durable designer bags.) Regular reusable shopping bags are often used in grocery stores, but some shoppers collect high-quality or luxury-brand shopping bags to carry for the look or the brand, even though the bags are not made from very durable materials.

In many countries as in some U.S. states, grocery stores no longer provide plastic bags, so shoppers must bring their own reusable grocery bags. To make these bags even more convenient, they should be designed to be foldable and compact, so they will easily fit into a purse. The small, reusable bag becomes a future shopping bag trend, and shoppers want to save it for future use at stores that no longer provide bags.

Whether designing packaging to reduce materials or to use reusable, recycled or recyclable source materials, designers are all contributing to a lessened environmental impact, which an extremely important issue to almost everyone.

The trend in colors changes yearly. Since 2000, the Pantone Color Institute has been selecting a Color of the Year. As the fashion industry's arbiter of color, Pantone chose "Marsala" for the 2015 Color of the Year. In 2016, the Colors of the Year will be "Rose Quartz" and "Serenity."

The latest color trends influence not only the fashion industry, but also other color-trend-conscious industries, such as electronics and appliance manufacturing. Cellphone manufacturers like Apple are always quick to jump on a trendy bandwagon. We can see some recent color trends if we look at the history of Apple's iPhone: the phone was first black, then white was added, then both silver and gold, and now we also have rose quartz.

More and more consumers enjoy online shopping where they can make purchases in seconds right at home. Online store revenue is increasing annually. Some fashion brands are even sold only online instead of in physical stores. Online retailers' 2015 holiday sales increased 15%-16%. With online shopping, merchandise comes directly to the door. While some shoppers visit retail stores to see or try on the merchandise, many never see the displays on retail store shelves. As a consequence, some retail stores are opting for smaller physical spaces and increasing their online presences. This virtual-store trend could have serious implications for the fashion industry. Customers' shopping behaviors have changed, so packaging designers should pursue creative methods to become a part of this trend.

While online shopping, consumers no longer see in person how the merchandise is packaged before making their purchasing decision. There are no clothing tags or shopping bags to look at. Shoppers receive unadorned brown cardboard shipping boxes delivered by Federal Express, UPS, USPS, or another carrier. This new selling process will have an influence on the design of packaging. People may assume their packages come from the retail e-store, but they are really drop-shipped directly from the manufacturer or a giant fulfillment warehouse like Amazon.com's. Now there's a whole new package that can be redesigned: the shipping container. Instead of a plain brown cardboard box, could it be something else? This is a wonderful opportunity for innovative fashion packaging designers to step in with creative ideas.

Designers are no longer just inside their own graphic world; they must learn the new business language. Business has changed to E-Commerce and virtual stores, so designers should adjust their designs to fit the requirement of the top parcel carriers, USPS, UPS and FedEx, as well as client's warehouse label capabilities. Leave the blank area in the design for standard carrier's label spot.

Summary

Change comes at a bewilderingly rapid rate in the fashion business as well as everywhere else. Will more and more shoppers buy clothing on line? Probably. To encourage online clothing shopping, many E-commerce sites provide very detailed size charts and free return or store pick-up services. But there will always be people who want to see it, feel it, and try it on before buying. We all know people who say, "I'd never shop online for clothing. I have to try it on." So brick-and-mortar retail stores may be smaller and fewer, but they are not going away.

In addition to the fact that online shopping has changed consumers' shopping behavior, environmental awareness has become another lifestyle-changing factor. Sustainable packaging has become part of everyday life. As a packaging designer, you must think how shoppers think and do what they do to maximize brand exposure. What kind of reusable bag would consumers want to use? And what are the target consumer markets? Packaging designer may design a reusable shopping bag that could be used for a sport's activity, such as a like back-pack style that could later go to the gym for a sport clothing brand; or the emphasis might be on durability in reusable bags that could be used for heavy grocery shopping for a family style clothing brand. Designers not only need to think the way shoppers think, they also need to think the way marketers and clients think.

The principles of design detailed here don't change. Good design will always be good design. But business environments changes swiftly, and designers need to quickly adjust their capabilities and conceptual thinking to adapt to up-to-date business needs. Especially in the fast-changing fashion marketplace, packaging designers should be acutely aware of fashion trends so they can develop appropriate packaging designs for them.

Changes may be frightening to some general packaging designers. But for fashion packaging designers, change means opportunities and creativity that is always in demand. It is my hope that the design tips, skills, techniques, and trends you've learned here will serve you in good stead. Long live packaging design for fashion! And I think it will.