While some design trends come and go, others make a more substantial impact in the packaging world. At Indepak, we are always studying the latest trends and packaging innovations to help provide our customers with the best possible packaging designs, and this includes our custom blister packaging. As we head into 2021, here’s what’s on the radar packaging-wise.
1. Sustainable Packaging Options
The trend toward greater sustainability isn’t new, but it continues to gain momentum. More and more consumers, especially younger consumers, are concerned about making sustainable choices and purchasing products with sustainable packaging. We can create your blister pack using packaging materials that are easy to recycle, such as PET or HDPE. These materials are accepted by virtually all curbside recycling programs.
Rather than using virgin plastic materials, we also can use materials with recycled content, either pre-consumer or post-consumer. Pre-consumer materials are those that are part of the manufacturing process but aren’t exposed to consumers, such as the plastic webs that remain after we run plastic sheets through a thermoforming machine to create a package.
Post-consumer materials are those that were used as packaging and came into contact with consumers. This includes everything from plastic water bottles, clamshell packaging and blister packaging. We can create your blister pack using 100% recycled materials or use recycled content for a portion of your packaging project. Recycled content is more expensive than virgin materials but still more budget-friendly than many other types of packaging materials.
We also can design some blister packs using starch-based biomaterials. These starch-based plastics are created from a renewable resource, such as cornstarch. These can be an option for some types of blister packaging, including clamshells, which actually are a type of blister pack that fold onto themselves.
With a blister pack, we can create a combination design that reduces the overall amount of plastic need for your project. For instance, the team at Indepak has extensive experiencing designing and producing trap blisters. For this type of packaging, we use a combination of paper or pulp and just enough plastic to cover, display and protect your product.
We recommend that you highlight the recyclability or sustainability of your packaging somewhere on your label so that consumers understand your commitment to becoming more environmentally friendly. On your company website, address your efforts to become more sustainable. This can pertain to your recyclable packaging choices, your in-house practices or even charities you support, such as charities that target protecting nature, wildlife, providing clean drinking water, etc.
2. Less Is More
Packaging doesn’t have to be huge to protect your product, and creating smaller packaging not only reduces the amount of plastic needed for your blister packaging project; it also lowers your packaging costs.
If you take a look at packaging designs from even 10 or 15 years ago, you will notice that packaging tended to be much larger than necessary. Today, we find that bigger isn’t necessarily better and reducing packaging sizes not only reduces packaging costs, but it also allows you to ship more units per box and fit more units of your product on a store shelf.
From an eCommerce perspective, smaller packaging greatly reduces your shipping costs. When you can fit items into a smaller box, it simply costs less to transport, and the team at Indepak can provide you enough packaging to surround and protect your products without wasting materials.
In general, this “less is more” philosophy also extends to your labeling. Simple, minimalist designs appeal to consumers for many products. These days, especially with the pandemic, people are not spending as long in stores, so your labeling needs to convey information quickly and easily about your product.
3. eCommerce Packaging Designs
When it comes to blister packaging for eCommerce sales, easy-open options are the way to go. While you might want a package that’s harder to open for a storefront shelf, easy-open packages are a great option for any products you sell online.
When it comes to blister packaging, we can design a custom plastic clamshell that can open easily for eCommerce sales, but we also can seal a portion of these clamshells for storefronts. We have a variety of sealing options available, including RF welding, heat sealing and more.
4. Make The User Experience Count
Studying your customer is the best way to create product packaging that might appeal to their sensibilities. While we create the plastic blister packaging, it’s up to you to create a label design that draws in new clientele and keeps existing customers interested in your product.
What matters to your client? How old are they? How do they shop – online or in the store? These are important considerations when designing your product label, and even the most successful brands are thinking about new ways to use packaging to reach customers.
For instance, a few years ago, Coca-Cola began adding people’s names to cans and bottles of Coca-Cola. This was a huge hit with consumers, and while Coca-Cola is one of the world’s popular and well-established beverages, it still attracted attention and boosted sales.
There’s no reason why your product label design can’t feature some clever marketing tactic, as well. In fact, it’s even more important for smaller businesses to find ways to set themselves apart from the larger companies or more established brands. And, it doesn’t have to break the bank.
Even with a product such as glue sticks, a stapler or a hammer, you should still be thinking about ways to draw in clients with your label design. This could be as simple as using a great typeface or a bit of spot color to draw the eye. While the label design is less important with some items, when it comes to items that might be seen as impulse buys rather than necessities, label design is crucial.
