PicMonkey’s design tools are perfect for product packaging design, from labels for bottles and bags to printed pouches and boxes. We can also help you create attractive tags, stickers and labels for your personal gift giving. But before you start creating your graphic packaging, you’ll need to do some serious thinking about the essence of your product and brand, the characteristics of your target customers, and how you want to organize your product information.
Convey your brand identity
The way you choose to package your product is totally tied to your brand. This design will be the most visible aspect of your business, so it should perfectly represent what your product is all about. When people see your product, whether in a physical store, online, in an ad, or on a table in their house, they should instantly know that it comes from you because of the way its packaging looks.
Brand with graphics
One way you can convey your brand is through graphics, and PicMonkey has a ton of those. For example, if your company specializes in natural or organic products, you’ll find excellent options under Nature and Lifestyle in the Graphics tab. Travel businesses can find cool looks under Vacation Rental and Travel.
If your company caters to kids, check out the Whimsy category, where you’ll see many different kinds of cartoonish graphics. Food & Drink also has a lot of kid-like images, especially under Backyard Cookout, Sweets, and Fruits & Veggies.
If you’re looking to give off an artistic or period vibe, scroll through our Design category. Artsy Blobs are perfect for companies trying to project a mid-century modern mood; Memphis Design has that 80s and 90s look that’s all the rage; and Arrows andGeometric Bold are full of cool black and white options.
Brand with fonts
One way to convey your brand is through your font choice. This bottle of body oil is all about the font. It’s a clean, modern, sans serif typeface printed in light gray to suggest this organic product’s purity and simplicity.
This hair product uses wavy, curly text that’s perfect for a product designed for wavy or curly hair. PicMonkey has more than 300 font choices and dozens of text layouts, so you’re sure to find an option that works with your product. Or you can upload your own fonts, too!
Appeal to your target customers
Imagine your product sitting in the home, on the nightstand, or in the hands of your target customer. Does it fit with their age, gender, personality, income bracket, and life goals? If you can somehow capture the essence of your ideal customer in the look of your product packaging, you’ll be that much closer to making a sale.
The ideal customer for this coffee is someone who is a coffee purist. They likely use a French press and scoff at adding sweetener and cream. They do care about the coffee’s origin and how it was purchased from the grower, but that’s about it. No fancy packaging, just good-quality coffee for a serious, unfussy connoisseur.
The packaging for these treats is brightly colored and fanciful, but not too cartoony or silly. These products are more for the kids at heart than actual kids. The font for the Fluff is fun and childish, but also a bit sophisticated. The Jelly Belly package puts the focus on the company’s well-known logo, which people associate with high-quality jelly beans.
Organize product information with text hierarchy
Also known as text hierarchy, this is the process of figuring out how to present your textual information in a way that’s visually pleasing and easy to read, and also helps people navigate the content so they can distinguish the most important information from the least.
This coffee label has a lot going on but still manages to be visually appealing and readable. The most important info is the brand name, Slingshot, which is right in the middle and written in the biggest lettering. The elaborate script font above and below play off each other nicely, and offer a perfect counterbalance to the blockier text in the middle. Finally, having Ready-to-Drink Coffee at the top in orange is a nice way to let people know what the product is, in case they’ve been living on Mars and aren’t familiar with cold brew. This is a great example of the importance of choosing diverse fonts that work harmoniously.
For this juice label, the logo and brand name are the most important, right at the top, followed by the type of juice, beet, and then the ingredients listed in smaller text. This is a sparsely designed label with plenty of white space, which suggests that the juice isn’t processed and is void of artificial ingredients.
In this example, there’s no text hierarchy because the company wants to focus on one thing and one thing only: “Boxed water is better.” These four words tell you what the product is as well as why you should buy it. The simplicity of the packaging drives home the idea that boxed water is better for the environment than bottled water.
Create gift packaging
Sometimes it’s nice to treat your personal gift giving like it’s a business, creating customized labels and stickers for holiday gifts for friends and family.
In this example, Gene R. Ositee designed a logo for herself, including a tagline proclaiming herself the “kindest person alive.” Now that’s personal branding! If your gifts are holiday related, be sure to visit the Holidays category for everything from Candy Cane Treats to Halloween Pumpkins.
If you’d prefer something a little less grand, create custom tags with messages printed on them that you can attach to gifts with twine. It’s a thoughtful touch that your gift recipients will surely appreciate! Go to Scripty Messages to find the perfect graphic for your gift tags.
