When browsing the aisles of a grocery store, the products that catch your eye are often bright, playful, and designed to stand out from their competitors. Packaging and label design plays a more crucial role in a product’s success than many realize. It acts as a silent salesperson, influencing purchasing decisions before a customer even picks up the item.
Understanding the right balance between creativity and functionality is essential. While fun packaging draws consumers' attention, it’s imperative that there is legibility within the design and that important information, like nutrition labels, does not become an afterthought within the design process. Understanding these design elements and the psychology behind a label is imperative. Read on to learn why label design is vital and how printing in-house can revolutionize your business.
There’s a reason we’re drawn to certain packaging designs, and psychology helps explain it. Colors, typography, and branding all play a role in what makes us pick one product over another. The use of different colors creates mental associations for the consumer. For example, green is often mentally paired with the idea of health and sustainability, while yellow gives off a positive, energetic vibe. Understanding these connections can help your packaging stand out in all the right ways and can help distinguish your product's personality over your competitors.
Typography is just as important. Fonts generally fall into two categories: serif and sans serif. Serif fonts tend to feel more sophisticated and professional, often obtaining a chic look when on product packaging. Sans serif fonts, on the other hand, tend to come across as more playful and approachable. Understanding these two differences is vital for the way your label will be received.
Of course, while great design is important, regulatory compliance can’t be ignored. Your packaging needs to be not only eye-catching but informative and accessible as well, ensuring your consumers have all the details they need while still following industry requirements. Understanding consumer preferences is also essential, with factors such as the nutrition label placement impacting their purchasing decisions.
After products hit the shelves, some companies realize they may have missed the mark, whether it's making packaging design too generic or generating a label that does not resonate with their consumers.
One notable example of a company that pivoted label design was Tropicana, which did a rebrand in 2008 that cost the company millions of dollars by no longer being recognizable to its consumers.
Another example is when RxBar changed its packaging to stand out on the shelves against its competitors and re-designed its packaging to appear more minimalist and health-centric, appealing to a wider audience.
For most companies, labels are designed in-house but printed by a third-party vendor, leaving you relying on someone else to get the quality just right. Factors like color vibrancy, Pantone accuracy, and image sharpness all impact how your packaging looks. If something goes wrong, fixing the mistake can take weeks, delaying production and disrupting your supply chain.
For commercial printers, incorporating a digital label press into their fleet enhances agility, enabling the ability to print short-run labels on demand. This provides greater flexibility for producing custom labels and allows printers to expand their capabilities, offering a broader range of products and services to meet diverse customer needs.
On-demand label printing revolutionizes this process. Being able to edit in real-time and print small batches gives your company more control, whether you're tweaking designs on the fly or rolling out seasonal packaging and limited-edition runs. It’s a flexible, cost-effective solution that keeps your production moving without the wait.
Integrating on-demand printing into your company's workflow may be easier than you realize. The SnapPress LP-1 is a digital label printer designed to scale, making high-quality label printing accessible to anyone—and we mean anyone. With short-run printing, you can produce labels in any quantity, ensuring that no labels go unused or money gets left on the table.
Having a digital label printer in-house and adding it to your pre-existing fleet opens up a new realm of possibilities for design. Having the ability to print on demand allows your company can test numerous variations of label designs before committing to printing a large batch, all without the wait.
Product packaging tells a story and showcases the personality of your product. Elements like color and typography help consumers connect with your brand and make your design stand out on the shelf against competitors.
On-demand label printing empowers businesses of any size to adapt quickly to design changes, reduce waste, and experiment with creative concepts without delays. With a solution like the SnapPress LP-1, you can bring high-quality label production in-house, ensuring every label meets your company's and consumers' standards.
Curious to see the quality for yourself? Request a free label sample today and experience the difference.
