Packaging design for the decisive moment
After the months of design, development, prototyping, negotiating for shelf space and marketing, it all comes down to a single moment…
The moment when the customer stands face to face with your product lined up next to the competition.
Does the customer reach for your product? Or is there a fatal hesitation, a dangerous pause as the customer’s eyes drift over to your competitors?
At Mela Creative, we design packaging for products that demand to be picked up.
Packaging design is high stakes
Magazine ads and sponsored Instagram posts buy you a moment alone with a customer. But on the shelf, your product is never alone. From doors open to lights off, your product is jostling for attention with all your competition. Who wins comes down to shelf impact.
Without enough shelf impact, even the best product is going nowhere. Literally.
This is why packaging design and branding need to be considered together. A brand that demands to be chosen on a label or box will always look brilliant on a building, a billboard or a business card. But it doesn’t work the other way around. A logo that’s good enough for an email signature won’t always command attention on a crowded shelf. For a product to fly off the shelf, you can’t stop at good enough; you need great branding.
Specialist packaging designers
Packaging we designed 20 years ago is still selling millions of units a year with only minor evolutions.
More than once, the colour codes we designed for a product range have been lifted by chain stores and applied to a whole category.
So after 30 years of designing packaging, we know we can make your product a category hero.
Packaging designed to build relationships
You’re an expert in your product. We’re experts in designing brands and packaging. Together, we create shelf impact.
That’s why you’ll find no barriers between you and your packaging designer; you’ll also find that nothing is too much trouble — because our designers will be as thrilled as you are when your product flies off the shelves.
Packaging designed to spec
Attention to detail in artwork is just a concept — until you’re landed with shipping containers piled to the walls with products you can’t sell because of printing errors. That’s why we triple check what we’ve already double checked.
Packaging designed to own categories
You’ll always get concepts designed meticulously to your brief; we’re not here to push an “agency aesthetic”. However, we’ll think as big for your product as you’ll let us — because choosing specialist packaging designers means you get to see more than you can brief.
We’ll show you all your options, so you can consider every edge you have to create impact.
Brands designed to expand
With me-too products from competitors (and retailers) never more than a few months away, you need to be able to iterate, evolve and expand quickly. That’s easier to do when you don’t have to worry whether your brand can keep up.
We have two decades of designing forward-focussed brands under our belts. You can be sure we’ll design your brand with enough creative elastic to fit everything your future holds.
Do you have a product you’re excited about? We’d love to hear all about it and talk to you about how we would approach designing brand and packaging fit for a category hero.
Designing the strategy for your packaging
It’s easy to design a concept that pops on the boardroom screen, but shelf impact is about context.
What else will be on the shelf with you? What is the competition doing? What will actually work in the retail context?
We design for the real world, not just for the boardroom. That’s why our designers get out from behind their iMacs to walk the aisles at Bunnings, Mitre 10, Woolworths, Coles… And not just one Bunnings, not just one supermarket. We’ll visit five, six, seven stores to see how your category is presented in each one. We’ll watch the customers, and we’re not afraid to ask them the odd question, either.
Then, when we’re down to the final concepts, we might ask you to skip the office and meet us in a store. You’ll be amazed by how often a design that stands out in the boardroom blends to invisible on the shelf. It’s why we always deliver options to the brief and options that go beyond.
Small team, category domination
We are a small team of packaging design and branding experts. With us designing your packaging and creating your brand, you get the benefit of decades of experience and the creative energy of a team of design specialists sparking off each other and you. (What you don’t get is seven layers of account management and no idea who is doing the work.)
You’ll talk directly with your designers. We’ll sit and sketch and work through problems in the room with you.
You’ll be amazed how quickly we can turn your product knowledge and marketing strategy into a brand and into packaging designs that will excite your sales team then dominate the shelf.
Systems and equipment to make packaging design real
Sometimes concepts need to be made physical to be appreciated.
Not everyone can visualise a product on a shelf from a sketch or even a 3D render. That’s why we’ve invested in large format print capabilities. We can print mock-ups during a meeting. We can give you mock-ups for your decision makers and sales teams to feel in their hands. When everyone can hold a design, sign-off is easier.
Afterwards, we store your designs in an indexed database. We can call up the artwork for any SKU instantly, months or years after final design. You won’t believe how often that’s a lifesaver for a product manager under pressure.
Are you ready to give your product wings?
All your hard work comes down to that decisive moment: the customer standing in front of the shelf or sitting in front of the screen. At that moment, only one thing matters…
Do they pick your product or not?
If you would like 30 years of branding and packaging design expertise focussed on making sure your product gets chosen, call or email us. We’d love to hear about your product, show you relevant examples and talk about how we can help your product fly off the shelf.