Misunderstanding of packaging

Abstract: This paper analyzes several misunderstandings in current packaging design, proposes an effective way to maintain the added value of packaging after streamlining packaging, and emphasizes the designer's professional ethics and moral values.

Keywords: Packaging, misunderstanding, product added value, green design, packaging is widely used in life and production. As early as in the primitive society, people used foods such as leaves, shells, bamboo canes, gourds and other natural materials to pack food for the storage and carrying of food. Its purpose was very clear: to protect, store, and move food or articles. This is the most primitive packaging. .

Driven by commercial interests, some of today's packaging designs have become a "burst" design. The added value of commodity packaging has been “played” over and created a variation in packaging, which has caused tremendous waste of human resources. The survey shows that China’s average annual consumption of consumer packaging is more than 30 kilograms. Although there is still a large difference between the consumption of developed countries and the developed countries in the world, due to the large population base, the absolute amount of annual packaging consumption is quite large and still It grows at an annual rate of more than 1.6 million tons. The production of packaging requires a lot of materials such as metal, glass, paper and plastic, and most of these packages become garbage after they are used up.

First, packaging errors

The purpose of the packaging is to make the product have a shell that matches its content when it is transported and sold. It is required that the packaging should have a good technical design to protect and characterize the complete quality of the product, and also have a good visual design effect to ensure the smoothness of the product. Sales. The packaging mission will end when the goods are put into use. However, many of the current packaging has increasingly deviated from the track of real life, and there have been a lot of flashy designs. After investigation, the author analyzes the errors in the packaging on the market as follows:

1. Visual "burst" loading

With the help of packaging's attractiveness and the sense of texture and image of packaging, it is an important strategy for corporate marketing to achieve sales promotion. With the development of modern society, especially the popularity of supermarkets, the promotion function of packaging has become even more prominent. However, today's packaging design has a phenomenon of visual “explosion”. In order to attract the attention of consumers, packaging blindly pursues visual impact, patterns are piled up, and colors are complex. The counter-effect of this visual "explosion" is: because of too "fancy" caused visual pollution, people do not see any information on the package to convey, but can not reach the role of propaganda and promotion.

2. Excessive material waste

With the development of the packaging industry and the combination of modern high-tech, many new types of packaging materials have emerged, but some seemingly high-end packaging has been out of the attributes of the goods. There are two major misunderstandings in the use of materials: First, excessive materials Upscale. Even if there is a certain amount of packaging on the packaging of gifts, when choosing materials must be modest, light decoration, rethink. Second, materials are stacked. Designers waste too much material in pursuing the formal beauty of style.

3. The proliferation of "culture"

In recent years, the “cultural” style in packaging design has been prevalent, for example, some packaging has used the so-called national visual symbols in packaging design in order to pursue a post-modern style. Due to the lack of understanding of the design culture by the designers, the designers were caught in the muddy form of chasing the genre and style. This "culture" of excessive packaging, its complex surface decoration will have higher requirements for the process, virtually increase the cost of the product, adding to the burden on consumers. This is contrary to the "culture" design ideas of packaging.

4. Excessive merchandise

"Bundle sales" caused a "burst" of additional goods. To buy a thousand-dollar moon cake gift box, it is better to buy a set of silver cutlery utensils and send a few moon cakes by the way. We measure the value of a product by the ratio of function and expense. Adding additional goods does not increase consumer demand for the product, but only increases its cost. This lowers the value of the product and increases the burden on consumers. Gift packaging is undoubtedly a luxury for working-class people.

5. Distortion of packaging information

Packaging is the main way for consumers to identify goods. Therefore, the information conveyed by the packaging should be authentic and accurate. However, there are false components in the information on some of the commodities' packaging, which mislead and deceive consumers. First, the falsity of the packaged text information cannot truly reflect the nature of the product, concealing or deceiving consumers. Second, the visual misdirection of packaging and decoration, such as the use of some paper in the packaging of useless hard paper shells, giving the illusion of "mass". The distortion of these packaging information has brought many annoyances and even injuries to people's lives.

Second, out of the wrong way to packaging

1. "Green" packaging design

The fundamental way out of packaging errors is to incorporate “green” design concepts into modern packaging design, where the choice of packaging materials is the core issue. At present, the packaging materials on the market are mainly paper packaging and plastic packaging, as well as metal packaging and glass packaging. First, paper is a biodegradable, recyclable, and reusable material that meets the "green" concept and should be promoted in modern packaging design. Second, to solve environmental problems, the choice of plastic packaging materials should also be taken seriously. PVDC plastic is a kind of "green" plastic packaging material with excellent performance. Its material consumption is much lower than ordinary PE film, paper, aluminum foil, etc., thereby achieving the purpose of reducing packaging and reducing waste sources. In addition, the newly developed PEN with a small number of applications is also a plastic that should be promoted. It is both easy to degrade and can be reused. In addition, there are many performance-specific "green" plastic packaging materials, such as: wheat plastics, chlorophyll plastics, bacterial plastics, soy protein edible packaging films, proteins, fatty acids, starch composite edible packaging films, etc. Designed to promote use.

Again, special attention should also be paid in the design to the use of a single packaging material for easy recycling and recycling. Multi-layered composite materials must be considered for ease of separation without hindering reuse.

2. Improve the overall quality of designers

Designers, as the main planners and creators of packaging, have direct and indirect responsibility for various problems brought about by packaging.

Therefore, we must first improve the overall quality of designers and enhance designers' understanding and understanding of the performance of packaging materials. Second, we must cultivate the sense of social responsibility of designers. Designers assume the role of coordination and cooperation between consumers and manufacturers. They should strive to use their own design language to persuade those businesses that are driven by commercial interests to enable the community to understand and support green design.

3. Control of legal means

Foreign experience tells us that if we want to establish a healthy enterprise production concept and cultivate a green, civilized consumer fashion, the role of the government is crucial. At present, relevant parties in China are actively drafting the "Packaging Law," and it is expected that it will soon be introduced. The promulgation of the "Packaging Law" will bring happiness to consumers, manufacturers and even the whole society. If there is effective control of the law, a good concept of consumption and production will be established, and China will step out of the wrong area of ​​packaging to create an excellent packaging design that truly meets the needs of modern society.

â–  Zhu Jie School of Art and Design, Hanhua University

Source: "Decoration"