Package design plays an important role in the design of a product. It is almost as important as the product itself. The package of a product gives out fist impression of the product contain. It links directly with the emotion of the consumers as one big factor affecting their decisions on buying or not buying. Being an important medium connecting the producers and the consumers, package design not only has to be beautiful and attracting, but it also has to be functional, economical and, with the recent green movement, environmental friendly as well.
Amid the many different package design for different products, food products rely on package design the most. Package to food product is important in both visual and functional aspect. To functional aspect, a well designed package keeps the food fresh, protects the food, and also helps the buyers to restore them. For examples, the design of zip lock bag package helps the buyers to keep the food fresh; the egg container protects the eggs from breaking. (images)
Besides functional aspect, visual aspect is also one big concern to the package designers because they know the power of our “visual feelings” which plays an important role in our decision making. “Visual feeling” is the different feelings that we get from seeing different things. Playing with the package design, applying image or color, for instance, to have a picture of a delicious apple on an apple juice product or apply red and yellow, the color combination that makes one hungry, to the package of frozen fast food products, the visual feeling we gain can create impulse in our mind that makes us want to purchase these products.
To the visual aspect, companies in Japan have being known for their well designed products and also packaging. With their conscientious culture, Japanese especially care about the details. To their idea of package design, they believe that taking every little detail of a product and the packaging into account is to give the buyers the respect. Therefore, in Japan, package design often occupies a large amount of the total budget of a product. Even though many designs may be judged to be over packaging and over wasting the materials which can be harmful to the environment, despite this negative aspect, there’re still many thoughtful and brilliant ideas can be found in Japanese package designs. And for food products in Japan, packaging has become the science, art and technology of protecting and restoring the products that sometimes to open up the package is like unfolding a present.
To give an idea of typical Japanese package design, below are some images as examples I found interesting. There are few typical characters of Japanese package design. One of them is that Japanese package designers like the idea of multiple layers, which they like to pack the products using not just one package but placing one within another. “Three layer” packaging is the most common package type for delicate food products in Japan. The three layers are the inner little package for each single unit, the box kind of container that holds the little packages together, and the exterior cover. This multiple layer kind of package design allows the buyers to enjoy the moment unfolding the package. It also helps the buyers to restore the food product inside that the whole thing is well designed as a beautiful box or drawer.
Another specialty to Japanese package design for food products is the use of paper. Different kinds of papers give out different feelings. In many Japanese food products, I found that the use of rice paper is common in the design of high class food products. The use of rice paper, the wrinkled texture, gives out a traditional feeling to the product and it makes the buyers to feel the history behind the product which it creates an illusion of “well made”, “well refined” and “good quality”.
Besides, another special thing I found in Japanese food package design is the use of characters. Most of the characters are chinese characters, which they called the “kanji”, that started to be used in Japanese from many centuries ago brought back by Japanese ambassadors who came to China at the time during of the advanced Tang dynasty. Japanese respect the history. They generally think that old things are good things because they have been refined by the time. Therefore, Combining with other Japanese characters, the hand written characters as the use of the rice paper also gain the product a kind of ancient and traditional feeling. But not to stick to the idea of traditional and cultural, the character design can also be modern and stylized nowadays that it has become as important as the use of image in Japanese food products.
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