OUTSIDE THE BOX
TAKING TOY PACKAGING TO THE NEXT LEVEL by TED MININNI, president and creative director, Design Force SO YOU GOT YOUR TOY PACKAGING right. It’s engaging kids and their parents. It begins the process of building relationships between them and your brand. It’s memorable, relevant, and personal. In short, it’s sticky. Congratulations! It’s terrific when brand managers maximize the effectiveness of their packaging. They understand that package design is truly the most important visual brand communication for consumers and a cornerstone to building equity in their property. VISUAL DESIGN LANGUAGE There are always compelling reasons to create a visual design language for consumer product brands, especially on packaging. The right combination of visual assets—package structure, substrates, color, fonts, imagery, and brand identity—delineate and separate one brand from among many in every retail category. They come together to make the brand the most desirable choice by creating an emotional connection with consumers and telling a story that is easy to absorb in a matter of seconds. Think about the importance of visual design language in this way: It is the interface between the graphics that summarize a brand and the consumer. Design creates an experience. Since consumers interact with packaging before they ever get to the products inside, it is a crucial experiential marketing tool. A unique visual design language optimizes the consumer experience. But in creating the optimal visual design language, what you choose to leave out is just as crucial as what you decide to include. THE VALUE OF EDITING Package designers and marketers are fond of minimalistic packaging these days, and many toy manufacturers are among them.
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Simple packaging with bold graphic imagery and fonts dominate the marketplace. But sometimes, package design is too simple. Or rather, it leaves out significant equitable visual assets in favor of minimalism, which is never a good idea. Astute package design professionals who have a thorough grasp of the most valuable assets of brands know which visual elements are crucial to those brands. They also understand which elements they can eliminate because they are not core to the brand experience. Irrelevant visual elements create clutter. Relevant ones must be seamlessly integrated into a cohesive brand language on the packaging. Those visuals have a supporting cast of essential verbal brand communications. Together they create a unique and compelling brand experience. The brand itself dictates how simple and minimal the packaging can be. Leveraging the right combination of visual elements can make packaging appear deceptively simple. It’s hard work to drill down to the core of a brand to develop and retain every equitable visual asset. Yet, that has to be done before developing successful package design solutions. Fat Brain Toys’ Spoolz presents an example of minimalistic package design that works. Clear packaging enables kids and their parents to see the
THE TOY BOOK | DECEMBER/JANUARY 2019 | toybook.com
toy in its entirety: colorful plastic spools that kids can stack in myriad ways. The package structure is unique. Shrink wrap basically outlines the spools on the left-hand side of the package, while the toy appears to be boxed on the right. The brand identity features a custom logo and the words, “Endless stackabilities.” Coupled with the visual brand assets, it tells the story as succinctly and perfectly as possible. It informs parents that this toy is suitable for infants ages 10 months and up. While this packaging appears to be quite simple, it’s actually sophisticated, tactile, and highly experiential. Another terrific example of well-edited package design is HEXBUG’s BattleBots Arena. This toy packaging makes a strong visual statement and needs little verbal brand communication to reinforce its message. A die-cut window shows the arena of combat, as well as the two BattleBots on full display. Tongues of fire appear behind the stage to visually communicate the heat of battle. A “Try Me” call-out on the lower right-hand side of the package encourages kids to go to the side panel and interact with one of the bots. Other than the HEXBUG logo and the Battlebots Arena brand, there is only one line of verbal communication: “Head-to-head remote control combat.” This is well-conceived package design that looks simple, but creates an impact.
