Skip to main content

POWERING UP DESIGN!


In our never-ending quest to extend the lives of our portable gadgets, we came across this little gem RavPower. While the product itself is rather unremarkable, being a simple powerbank, it is clear that the manufacturer has put some thought into the design of the packaging to set themselves apart in the sea of similar products.




The clean and elegantly simple box only says “POWER YOUR LIFE” and the center graphic drives the point home. It shows the Power button, accompanied by pictograms representing our mobile lifestyle. It covers everything from gaming, to videos to maps, and messaging; a cleaver way to show us that when you need to live the mobile lifestyle to the fullest you will need all the power you can get and that this product will deliver that for you. Playful graphics on the sides of the package further develops on this concept.





Upon opening the box, you will be greeted with a simple “Hello” printed on a small multi-lingual booklet. In addition, you will find two separate boxes holding the cables and the powerbank itself. Where most manufacturers would have just tossed the products together, here they are neatly packaged in their own separate inner boxes.The two color scheme also carries nicely over from the outside.




On the back of the box one finds a QR code leading you to the company’s mobile-friendly website. Unlike generic ones, this one nicely incorporates the company’s brand name in the center.
  
All in all, we feel the combination of small touches from the two color design, to the clever use of pictograms, and the simple and clear on-point messaging culminates in an elegant presentation of a generic product and sets it apart from competitors. A great example of how graphic design is used effectively to further the value proposition of a product and enhance the on shelf appeal of a product.



Mehrdad is a designer at JDA Inc, a graphic design firm that specializes in supporting companies' branding and retail efforts with a Unified Marketing approach. To learn more, click here click here.



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Packaging: 10 Steps to a Better Process

1. Prioritize. Prioritize. Prioritize. When three people are talking to you, you can’t hear them all. The same is true for design. Visual priority must be established from the very beginning of the design process. If every item is given primary importance, nothing becomes important. The visual priorities are what drive how all creative will be judged. The design firm should include as part of their creative brief, a hierarchy of 5 communication points for the front of the package. This includes 1) brand 2) product name 3) why-to-buy statement 4) feature points 5) product image. 2. Come together. Everyone has an opinion, so clear project objectives are vital to any job. Consensus regarding the creative brief must be obtained from the people expected to judge the package design from within your corporation. Without this consensus, the design process will fall apart. Without clearly stated, agreed-upon objectives, you are not able to provide constructive feedback. As soon as you start t...

New and Not Necessarily Improved

A story in the March 3, 2009 issue of the LA Times regarding the unfavorably received new Pepsi brand redesign reminded me of another recent unsuccessful redesign—the one for Tropicana orange juice. A few months ago, I was in a Target store buying some orange juice. I usually get the Tropicana brand, and was disappointed when I didn't see any in the cases. I just saw a bunch of unfamiliar cartons that I immediately wrote off as "not Tropicana" and kept looking around. It was only during a second pass that I realized that these new cartons were indeed Tropicana. Wow, I thought, that's a pretty radical new look. Gone were any vestiges of familiarity--the funky old-style logo, and especially the orange with the straw stuck in it. The new carton is dominated by a large shot of a tasteful-looking (not necessarily tasty-looking) glass of orange juice, with the word "Tropicana" in an unfamiliar sans serif font and green color turned 90ยบ clockwise along the side. T...

Let Your Packaging Sell Your Product, Not a Funny Name!

So I ran across this product while I was traveling in NY and needed some earplugs.  I can't sleep without them. Earplugs are notoriously hard to find on shelf so I had to scan many products. I came across this product and got quite a chuckle. I don't think I need to explain why (To be fair, it was awhile ago, and the package design could have changed since then.): Zim's Crack Creme---we can assume that Zim is the pharmacist who created this all-natural herbal wonder cream (creme) for your crack. Or is that really what this means. Surly it couldn't. We design packaging and I couldn't help but analyze this package as I would for a client. The first thing we help our clients do is to prioritize the elements on the front of the package. What is the most important thing to communicate? The name? The brand? The why-to-buy? The features? Obviously, Zim felt the name of the product was most important. But if the name of the product doesn't really convey what it doe...