What's the difference between packaging design and brand identity?

Brand identity is the full system a brand uses to express itself. Packaging design applies that system to a product's physical form, creating a consistent and impactful brand experience on-shelf.

How long does packaging design take?

From a few weeks for a single pack to several months for a full range with structural development and production testing. Printer lead times and regulatory checks often set the pace.

How do you design packaging for a whole product range?

By building a system with fixed brand elements, a clear design logic to tell variants apart, and flexible space for product-specific information. The range then reads as one family on shelf while each pack works in a standalone context.

A dieline is the flat template of a pack, showing where it's cut, folded and printed. Designers build artwork on it so the packaging design lands correctly once the pack is formed in production.

How does packaging design work for e-commerce and unboxing?

Packaging for an e-commerce brand tends to prioritise the unboxing experience, rewarding the consumer the moment it arrives. This makes the design of packaging renders for e-commerce channels just as important as the physical design itself.

Branding Handbook

Brand Experience

Packaging Design

Packaging design is the visual expression of a product, shaping how it's discovered and understood at point of purchase.

What is packaging design?

Packaging design refers to the way a product looks, feels and communicates, from its structure and materials to its visual and verbal expression.

Often the first physical moment of a branded product, it's also the one that has to work hardest, competing for attention on a crowded shelf while clearly communicating what the product is in a single moment.

Since packaging builds brand recognition, it needs to translate an identity effectively with very little real estate. The best packaging design gives just as much thought to its production, using the shape and tactility of the design itself to influence consumers even further.

What makes good packaging design?

Standout visual presentation

It's not enough for the right brand codes to be applied correctly. They need to be optimised for maximum on-shelf impact. That means being conscious of the context: for example, will any faces of the packaging be obscured when they're stacked?

A clear hierarchy

When you're working with seconds to communicate a message to shoppers, the most important messages need to be organised well and expressed in a way that's unmissable.

Use of distinctive brand assets

With on-pack space in short supply, a brand's most ownable assets should take priority. This could include clever use of a signature colour, going all-in on an illustration style, or putting a mascot front and centre.

The right materials and shape

The format and finish should suit the product itself and the brand's values. This is particularly true for brands with sustainability at the heart of their purpose.

Consistency beyond the pack

The same look and feel should carry through to point-of-sale, retail environments, and digital experiences, so the brand feels unified.

How packaging design works in practice: Wild Thingz

Before they were Wild Thingz, the people behind the candy came to us with a mission: to create a plant-based confectionery brand that parents wouldn't feel bad about, and kids would go mad about.

One walk down the supermarket aisle is enough to see that the world of organic is wholesome, white and hemp-y. Yet the 'bad candies' are an explosion of bright colours, flashy logos and exciting in-pack games. We started asking: why does junk get to have all the fun?

Challenger

Consumer Goods

DTC

Wild Thingz

Every part of Wild Thingz' packaging is designed to let kids taste the rainbow without eating all that rubbish. A punk aesthetic rebels against a category full of 'blanding' to give them undeniable impact, led by a Venus flytrap mascot and logo made of thorns for instant, distinctive recall on a crowded shelf.

Point-of-sale assets add even more dimension to this world of plant-based anarchy, which continues into the shape of the sweets themselves. The result is a category-defining brand that has the ingredients of a saint, but the energy–and shelf appeal–of a sinner.

Outcome: Listed in 75 WHSmith sites from July 2026, with £250K worth of orders secured from an independent distributor.

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