7 Practices to Help You With Your Cosmetics Packaging Design

In today’s day and age, every aspect of a product is reviewed and commented on. Internet beauty influencers will now often comment on the packaging of a product as well as the product itself. Before designing your cosmetics packaging, ask yourself these 3 essential questions:

• What is the product?
• Who is buying it?
• How are they buying it?

Once you narrow down the specific answers to all of these questions, you will have a good idea of what direction your packaging design needs to go in. But, as you know, designs can be cutthroat. They need to help your product stand out from a sea of other options. Do you have an amazing cosmetic product such as makeup, hair care, or skincare? Are you stuck trying to design the perfect packaging to help your product shine? We at The Packaging Lab are here to help with your cosmetics packaging design. Follow these 7 tips for a successful design.

1. Keep It Simple

Less is always more when it comes to packaging designs. Creativity is a must, but there can come a point where it is overdone. The design should be clean and straightforward. The packaging itself should be simple and user-friendly. Packaging that is complicated to open will frustrate customers. Custom flexible packaging is the perfect solution for simple, but effective packaging. If you find yourself wanting to add more and more complicated elements to your design, ask yourself these questions:

• What is this product for?
• Who is the brand behind it?

The answers to these questions will pull you back into focus. Simple packaging design elements can also prioritize environmentally-friendly products and a unique brand voice.

2. Stay Informed About Market Trends

In order to design the best cosmetic packaging, you need to stay up-to-date with market trends. Social media is a fantastic way to gain insight into popular trends. Are popular designs on Instagram in a minimalist style? Or do they have an air of nostalgia about them? Are fonts chunky or pristine? Take every opportunity to profit from the hype in the media. If certain popular trends seem like they won’t last long, consider creating a limited edition version of your design. Currently, in the cosmetic industry, the biggest trend in packaging is flexible packaging. Flexible packaging is durable, adaptable, and lightweight. Trendy flexible packaging is here to stay because it is smaller and more easily transported compared to stiff containers. This flexible packaging is better for the environment because it reduces the need for unnecessary packaging materials. Helping the environment will always be on-trend!

3. Understand Your Customer

Empathy is one of the most essential skills you can learn in marketing. It is paramount to understand a customer’s needs and wants even better than they understand themselves. The best cosmetic packaging designs are empathetic to the customer’s perspective. How can you gain empathy and understand your customers?

• Get to know your customers’ personalities by noticing how they interact with your product. Is it something they want to use every day, or just for special occasions?
• Create a customer demographic of the most common ages, genders, hobbies, and occupations that interact with your product. For detailed demographics, get to know your customers’ income levels, geographic locations, marital status, and parental status.
• Test, test, and test! Deciding on one design without testing it on your customers is a waste of time and money. Just starting out and don’t have a loyal customer base yet? Test your designs on friends, family, and random people at the store.

The beauty industry is competitive for manufacturers, designers, and inventors. Getting to know your intended audience on a personal level will help you stand out and set you up for success. A confident understanding of your customers will increase product integrity for manufacturers and customers alike.

4. Pick Colors That Stand Out

Unless it makes a lot of sense for your packaging design to be black and white or gray, consider the whole spectrum of the color wheel. Choosing your color scheme requires a delicate balance. Your packaging should be a color that stands out and attracts customers. Simultaneously, it shouldn’t be too loud to the point where it’s overwhelming or hard to look at. Find colors that compliment your product and the feelings and emotions you want to elicit. If you sell bright, fun eyeshadow pallets, carry that over into the colors of your design.

5. Tell a Story

If you don’t already have an interesting story about your company and how it solves a particular problem in the cosmetics industry, spend some time finalizing that. Once you have a clear understanding of the story of your brand, you can incorporate it into your packaging design. Stories sell because customers want to feel like they are participating in a cause that they are passionate about. How can packaging design tell a story? Find a way to incorporate a meaningful message in your design. Use images that make a clear statement. Design a combination of words and images if that best tells the story of your brand. Does your brand work exclusively with under-served workers in a particular country or region? It is meant to help people of certain ethnicities or with any particular conditions? These are all things to consider working into the story of your design.

6. Consistency is Key

It is essential that your packaging design, logo, and website are all consistent. Make sure each avenue for your product tells the same story of your brand. Consistent, memorable designs help your customers remember you and associate your brand with their needs. Just like how you should test your design packaging on customers, friends, and family members, you should do the same with your logo and website. Don’t settle for the first branding scheme that you like. Instead, mock-up multiple potential branding schemes with different fonts, colors, and tag lines. Take inspiration from other designs that you like. Once you have a few potential branding schemes, test those out before choosing your favorite.

7. Remain Honest and Authentic

Lastly, be sure to remain honest and authentic to your values. Don’t plagiarize or appropriate other brands. Avoid misleading your customers with dishonest packaging. Accurately depict what your cosmetic product is. Don’t claim that it cures eczema if it simply helps moisturize. Don’t claim that a certain makeup product contains all the colors of the rainbow when it only contains 4 colors. Keep your personality and character at the center of your design. Authentic packaging designs will earn your customer’s trust and continued business.

Create Your Unique Cosmetic Packaging Design Today

These 7 tips will help you create a cosmetic packaging design that helps you stand out. If you understand your customer and tell your authentic story, you will find the perfect way to bring simple packaging to life. Feeling inspired but still unsure if you can create a design on your own? The Packaging Lab offers Design For Me as a fast and inexpensive way to bring your ideas to life. Give us your story, and we’ll handle your graphic design. Once you have created a unique design for your brand, order a free sample pack to see how your design will look on your flexible packaging!