byTED MININNI,president and creative director, Diamond Force
The wedding are jingling and stores are filled with holiday-themed products once again. As spending increases during the holiday season, its no wonder many manufacturers try to capture their share of sales with holiday-specific campaigns.
For us toy industry folks, this is our time to shine. Our products are on everyones shopping lists, and, hopefully, theyll find their way into everyones shopping carts as well. This is the time of year we get to see if our packaging is doing what its meant to do: capturing the sustentation of consumers to inspire a purchase. For most toys, packaging doesnt transpiration to unbend the holidays, but what well-nigh brands with seasonal items? How should these brands establish a holiday-themed packaging squint without diluting their cadre trademark messaging? Lets take a squint at how brands can develop seasonal packaging without efferent completely from their established and equitable look.
LESS IS MORE WHEN MAKING CHANGES TO AN ESTABLISHED LOOK
When developing a holiday-themed look, the most platonic scenario would be to not have to completely rethink a brands package diamond to request to consumers during the various holiday seasons throughout the year. Why? Because any transpiration made to a brands package diamond can potentially compromise the connection that the trademark has once established with its consumers at retail. There are a variety of visual resources within a brands package diamond system that resonate with consumers on a subconscious level the trademark identity diamond and placement, the diamond architecture, the trademark verisimilitude palette, the treatment and placement of benefits and features communication, the product imagery, and the overarching visual aesthetic all of which take time to establish an undertone with the trademark in consumers minds. Therefore, modifications to any of these resources as a trademark develops its holiday-themed packaging should be made with shielding consideration.
With this in mind, brands should consider waffly only one or two aspects of their everyday look. Maybe add a holiday-themed pattern to the overall preliminaries color. For Christmas-themed packaging, perhaps strategically integrate a ribbon and a bow into the current design. For Valentines Day, maybe a red-and-pink snipe in one corner or a heart-shaped call-out will do the trick.
DESIGN EVERYDAY PACKAGING WITH HOLIDAYS IN MIND
To unzip a perfectly seamless transition to a holiday-inspired design, a brands everyday package diamond should be ripened with its holiday versions in mind. This is expressly true for brands that create dedicated packaging for four major holidays: Valentines Day, Easter, Halloween, and Christmas. Brand owners need to establish which areas of their package diamond will transpiration to holiday colors or be replaced by holiday-specific assets, while moreover determining which aspects of the package diamond system will remain resulting to ensure trademark recognition and to protract to build visual probity throughout the year.
REFRESHING THE GLOBAL PACKAGING PROGRAM FOR AN ICONIC BRAND
When Peanuts Worldwide decided to refresh the global packaging program for its cadre Peanuts licensed products, the visitor wanted to establish a new squint that would unbend everyday products as well as seasonal, holiday-themed products. The objectives for the diamond refresh were to create a simple, contemporary visual stimulating that would work unceasingly wideness any conceivable packaging format, while paying homage to the origins of the minion Peanuts brand the comic strips by Charles M. Schulz.
Although our primary focus during diamond minutiae was to create the squint for everyday Peanuts licensed products packaging, we never lost sight of the need for that very same squint to transition to the packaging for holiday licensed products. Our diamond solution leverages iconic elements associated with the Peanuts brand. There may be nothing increasingly iconic in the world of Peanuts to represent the trademark than the device we employed as the primary package diamond architecture the zig-zag graphic from Charlie Browns sweater which bisects the design. Above the zig-zag graphic is a repeat pattern made from a hodgepodge of Schulzs Peanuts comic strips from both the vintage and archetype eras, appearing in a gray-on-white tone to serve as the scenery for the Peanuts logo. Below the zig-zag is a distressed halftone pattern a nod to the comic strip printing process in shades of yellow. Snoopy serves as the primary weft representing the Peanuts brand. However, the full tint of Peanuts notation is made misogynist for licensees to utilize on packaging for character-specific products. Side panels depict scenes that portray the familiar relationships between the characters, and moreover leave room for product imagery as well as product benefits and features communication.
TRANSITIONING FROM EVERYDAY TO HOLIDAY-THEMED LOOKS
Every speciality of the squint established for eeryday cadre Peanuts licensed product packaging plays a role in the seamless transition to holiday-themed variations. The placement and relationships between the key components of the overarching diamond remain exactly the same. However, the verisimilitude of the Peanuts logo, the halftone pattern, the call-out violator, and the window box insert shift to red and pink for Valentines Day, a pastel palette for Easter, bold orange with untried and purple accents for Halloween, and archetype red and untried for Christmas. The wide-stretching Peanuts art windfall archives unliable us to swap everyday weft artwork for dedicated, holiday-specific weft artwork and props. And, since Schulz created myriad comic strips for each holiday, we were worldly-wise to create a unique, holiday-themed comic strip pattern for the upper portion of each holidays package variation.
When viewed slantingly the everyday cadre Peanuts licensed product packaging, the visual continuity in the holiday-themed variations is glaringly obvious, and so are the benefits to this tideway to package design. Everyday and holiday-themed products can coexist at retail without compromising the trademark statement. Furthermore, the overarching new squint for the global packaging program for cadre Peanuts licensed products can protract to build recognition among trademark enthusiasts throughout the year.
This vendible was originally published in the 2022 Innovation & STEM issue of The Toy Book.Click hereto read the full issue! Want to receive The Toy Book in print?Click herefor subscription options!
