Browsing the library bookshelves as a kid, I was always drawn to the noticeably new books—you know, the ones with enticing cover designs, pages that hadn’t turned yellow, and binding that hadn’t frayed at the bottom.

For me, that meant heading straight for the neat, clean rows of series books that I instantly recognized by their size, color scheme, and even title font. I hated when my mom tried to sneak a “classic” into my pile of Sweet Valley Twins and Goosebumps. I’d wrinkle my nose in disgust at the solid-colored hardcover with an ancient-looking illustration sketched in nothing but thin, black lines underneath the gold-scripted title.

“You can’t judge a book by its cover,” she used to say. “Can’t” was the wrong choice of words, though, because I sure could. It may have been a premature, uninformed and unfair judgment, but in my mind, those covers may as well have shouted in bold, black text, “Do not remove from shelf! The contents of this book are guaranteed to contain nothing of interest if you were born within the last century. The library is not responsible for sneezing fits caused by decades of settled dust.”

Of course, although I never would have admitted it then, those “classics” really did turn out to be classics. My mom, as usual, had been right, and had she not forced me to explore beyond my go-to fluff, I would have missed out big time.

Why is packaging design important?

Sadly, I haven’t learned to apply that proverbial “not judging a book by its cover” thing to the many purchasing decisions I make from day to day. Seeing as though my mom doesn’t force me to buy a specific brand of yogurt at the grocery store or a certain type of paintbrush at the hardware store, I tend to make my decisions based on two things: price and packaging. When two options are relatively close in price, the company with the best designer is almost guaranteed to land my business.

The truth is, first impressions play a very significant role for consumers; in fact, 70-80 percent of a purchasing decision is made at the point of sale, and consumers spend an average of less than ten seconds in any single product category.

That means your packaging better be a solid component of your brand identity. If consumers have used your product in the past, they need to recognize your brand instantly the next time they make a purchase. If the audience you’re targeting is not already familiar with your brand, you need an attractive design that immediately catches their attention and convinces them to try something new.

What makes a package successful?

Just like the series book covers I instantly recognized as a kid, packaging design needs to be consistent to be recognizable. The packaging concept should enforce a message reflected in your other advertising and promotional tools. Practical and functional, the packaging design should be clean, easy to read and consistent with your other products’ names, shapes, colors and materials.

Take, for example, the ink cartridge carton in the photo. Cultivate designed Ink Station’s logo to reflect its environmentally friendly business model, and everything from their recycled packaging materials to their signage is consistent with the store’s brand.

Cultivate also recently designed packaging for Fontanini, a Chicago-based fine Italian meat company. Fontanini has been selling meat wholesale to the food industry for over four decades and just recently decided to retail directly to consumers. Working with Fontanini’s existing logo, Chris designed the packaging for a new line of meat products that will soon be available in grocery stores. The packaging is one of several components in a “Savor the Tradition” promotional campaign Chris developed for Fontanini.

For more examples of spectacular packaging design, check out Lovely Package® and The Dieline, two leading websites that feature some of the best designs in the packaging industry.