Smart design in reducing size can lead to a lot of savings.
Packaging design can be used to make your products stand out. A desirable design is important, but one of the most important factors is still functionality. Packaging designs need to serve a purpose — to protect the contents and display them in a pleasing manner.
We have done a few gift with purchase projects with Milo and one of the reasons why we get many of these repeating projects is because we understand that aesthetics are important, but we can make sure that we can create a small package to hold the contents safely as well.
The Milo project was to include Milo sachets and a ceramic mug in a box. The mug needed to be displayed for people to know how it looks and how big it is, and a cut out was requested. This presented a challenge. If the mug was attached to the side, it would be visible but the mug was fragile and may break during transport.
It was natural to think about putting it inside the box, but there were several tests to conduct to ensure the safety of the mug and the contents do not get easily removed.
Using the Milo sachets to cushion the mug was a good solution as it reduces the form factor as the empty space were filled with Milo Sachets. We created several prototypes and found that the mug handle would move about and may shift to cover the brand or worse, expose the handle, leading to damage. After a few rounds of iterations, a cutout for the handle was made to secure the handle so the mug would not shift.
This allowed the brand to be visible and protect the mug and the handle at the same time.
The final design included a mug sleeve which was just a cardboard and relatively light weight. The mug was cushioned by the sachets and no additional packaging material was needed, and the whole box was easy to produce as the design was rather straightforward.
We just needed a printer and the box was done.
In short, a good design can look good and have a small form factor. The good part about it is that this smaller box size that survives drop tests saves on storage, shelf space and transport costs.
Being smaller, more of these could be shipped in one trip, reducing transport footprint as well.
Form factor of the product packaging should be one of the key areas to focus on in terms of sustainability as this little saving can save a lot.
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