The packaging that you use says a lot about your brand. If you go down the inexpensive route, you’re more likely to encounter issues with damaged parcels and broken items; however, this will give you a higher margin per order.
If you want to invest a little more in your packaging, we’d advise that you at least consider branding it. It’s been proven that branded packaging improves customer retention. You can learn more about this in our article Understanding the Benefits of Branded Packaging.
In this article, we’re going to look at the different options for customising cardboard boxes, and how to create an impactful branded packaging experience.
So, you have your brand established, you’re getting orders through, and want to make a big impact when the parcel is delivered to its recipient. Your best option is to invest in high-quality, sturdy cardboard boxes and start designing the branding for them.
Your branding doesn’t need to follow your website and logo design; however, it’s a great place to start. The things you need to consider are:
Let’s take a deeper look…
The colours that you choose can make or break your branding. In reality, you can use any colour you wish; however, as a rule of thumb, use colours that compliment or contrast each other well.
You also need to think about the colour of the packaging that you’re using. From experience, yellow doesn’t work as well as other colours. Brown cardboard will mute the colour, and white cardboard will make any yellow font or design hard to see.
For text, use bold colours like black, brown, dark blue, and dark green. These colours will stand out on your packaging no matter the design that you choose to use.
For your design, keep it noticeable but the main part of your branding is the company name so this needs to be the first thing that your customers see when they receive their parcel.
As a general rule, try and limit your branding to 3 colours. If you start edging towards 5+, your branding will start to become washed out and look too busy. If you’re using a picture logo, then the 3 colour rule doesn’t apply; especially if your image contains things like shadowing.
If you don’t have a colour scheme already, a good place to start is with the primary colours. You can then work off of these to find a harmony of colours that you really like.
If you have a logo, it’s naturally a good idea to put it on your packaging; however, it depends on what your logo is.
If your logo is an image without accompanying text, we’d advise that you either use your logo as a small anecdote on your packaging, or that you use the logo on one side and the name of your company on the other. Unless you have a major brand like McDonalds, your logo won’t be instantly recognisable. Using the name of your company on your packaging is vital for great branded packaging. A custom box with logo is one of the most effective branding solutions when it comes to promoting your business.
This is probably an obvious one, but you must ensure that you use a print size that is big enough to see from a short distance. You don’t want your text to wrap around your packaging as it makes it harder to read. So a happy medium is best for the size of your font. We’d advise that if you’re solely using your company’s name on your packaging, ensure that you leave a margin surrounding the text and that your font sits nicely in the middle of your packaging.
For fonts, use a font-type that’s easy to read. Cursive may look pretty, but it’s not as easy for the brain to process. If you want to make your company name stand out on your packaging, go for a front that is straight and bold. With fonts, the less-fancy, the better.
Once you have decided on the font, print size, colour scheme, and use of logo, it’s time to decide on the method of printing that you’ll use. For an in-depth look into the different methods used today for printing onto cardboard, take a look at our article, How are Cardboard Boxes Printed?
Need some help with custom packaging for your company? Get in touch!
