Holistic design

Holistic can be a very broad term (no pun intended), as it is often used to describe design processes that cover multiple aspects. Structural packaging design is by its nature multifaceted. Even the most basic packs have to balance functional, commercial and communication requirements.

However, a truly holistic approach to packaging design encompasses all of the marketing, supply chain, customer, consumer and sustainability needs, and requires a process that can establish and address the optimum balance of priorities.

Structural packaging designers are a rare breed. They are mostly trained as product designers, but to be successful need to understand the culture of brands, the unique constraints of manufacturing, supply chain, customers and consumers.

In reality, much design isn't carried out with this breadth of understanding, and the process is compartmentalised into creative, marketing and technical segments.

The benefit of one agency developing a design from insight generation through to production is that the design emerges from real understanding of the issues, and the designers themselves champion the total solution rather than subjectively interpreting and losing the essence of the brief.

The brief is often seen as the start of the process, but our approach is to understand as much as possible about the client's objectives, constraints and opportunities, consumer insights, assumptions and knowledge gaps, before agreeing a design brief.
Holistic in this sense means starting with the need or opportunity and taking the broadest possible view, taking into account all the factors that might influence the success or failure of the project, and understanding the relationship between them.

Contrary to what many people think, the design process is not strictly linear. Designers consider multiple factors simultaneously. It is a process of balancing the various factors and exploring the implications of changing each of them.

In the simplest bottle design, for example, a change in proportion will have an effect on the visual character, but might have a practical impact on various stages of the filling line; it will affect the consumer ergonomics, the pallet efficiency for distribution and possibly the number of facings that are on the supermarket shelf.

That's at the simplest level. If the brief is more open, to establish a new format for example, then the implications are far more complex and the combination of factors is exponentially increased.

So the design process is a cycle of non-linear explorations from which the most promising concepts are identified, extracted and taken into the next stage, and at each stage viewed through a different filter - ergonomics, labelling, aesthetics, etc - to arrive at a range of possible solutions, each with a different combination of implications.

The process as the client sees it is of course more sequential, but at each stage all of the factors continue to be addressed simultaneously and their significance and hierarchy can change from phase to phase.

Even for seasoned marketers, structural design briefs are few and far between, so for many projects it is the client's first experience of commissioning a new pack.

It is not surprising therefore that this complexity is invisible to them. Designers on the whole have been unsuccessful in explaining their core skill of plate spinning all these requirements from a raw concept to a viable and compelling solution. The result is that, too often, hundreds of thousands of pounds' worth of insight generation, research and development result in a compromised rather than optimised solution - or failure to launch - as without an appreciation that every change needed to meet everyone's requirements, there is a domino effect and the design will fail.

This isn't just about design purity, it is about meeting the demanding expectations of consumers, the critical cost factors and the multiple technical challenges to ensure the product gets through the various internal gates to launch and is ultimately successful.

Part of the problem lies in the misunderstanding about the role of the structural designer. Many clients view packaging design as graphic design, though the latter is less complex to create and to deliver intact. Often there is an assumption that the first tangible concept is realisable in the same way as an early graphic design is.

This leads to the view that the structural designer can produce some concepts and that these can then be handed over for production. A good structural designer has an understanding of the challenges in realising that vision, and has the tenacity to ensure that as it is translated into reality, it maintains its integrity throughout.

The "Re-" factor
First there were three Rs: reduce, re-use and recycle. Since then, there are re-fill, re-seal, replace, repair, re-think, refuse and probably others.

Reduction was one of the first targets for sustainability, and appeared to be a win win situation, where less packaging materials cost less for the manufacturer and less for the environment, and potentially less for the consumer.

But this is actually so obvious that certainly most mass manufacturers automatically now use as little material as possible - although defining the appropriate level is an issue that requires exploration.

For years, designers have made money out of a recurring cycle of taking cost out of packaging, followed two to three years later by adding value back into the same packaging because of a perceived lack of quality.

In a world where every brief includes the word 'premiumise', the opportunities for down-weighting existing formats are now minimal. Apart from the quality perception, the problem of material reduction in packaging is also the proportional reduction in protection. Damaged goods, and particularly food waste, are now seen as a much bigger problem.

Reduction in material use is now starting to be achieved as a consequence of reduction of the actual product. Manufacturers are now waking up to the realisation that concentrating their products can save them money as well as meet their sustainability targets and give consumers added benefits. Unilever's concentrated Antiperspirants and Robinson's Squash'd are good examples of concentrated products seeing success.

Re-use is an intriguing and recurring theme in design, but it suffers because of the difficulty in quantification. I've been in many research sessions where consumers have qualified their liking for a pack design by saying they'd keep it to store precious things in or display flowers - but we only have anecdotal evidence to suggest how many people actually do this.

There is a very low limit to how many packs anyone can or would want to keep, and it leads to the question: does re-using or re-purposing a pack really benefit the environment or just give consumers more receptacles than they would otherwise have?

Some people buy purpose-made water bottles for work or sport, others re-use 'disposable' bottles. They get used longer, but still get thrown away, and they are not being used as an alternative to buying another bottle of water, so is this helping?

Bottled water is an environmental pandora's box, and re-using the bottle is in any way a tiny issue compared with the extraction and transportation of what we can get from a tap.

It is now well understood amongst our clients that environmentally friendly packaging is not in itself a sales driver; it's at best a brand support that makes consumers feel better about the choice they've made.

It is the added benefit of the reduced size of a micro deo, portable convenience of Squash'd or (slightly) reduced cost of a Kenco refill that drives purchase.

The need we are seeing now in designing for sustainability is to create designs that create consumer benefits that qualify the new, more sustainable formats.

Desire has emerged as a candidate for fulfilling that need. The success of Nespresso has every marketeer wondering if they could create an equivalent for their category: a branded machine that people pay a lot of money for, and a system that locks consumers into repurchasing higher margin consumables.

The real consumer rationale is not rational, it is desire; nor is it environmental, although the closed loop recycling takes the guilt of disposing of those single-use shiny things literally away.

I'm sure Dettol 'no touch' was inspired at least in part by Nespresso, and it's initial success was due partly to technical delight (as well as it's timely appearance at the time of a hygiene-based health scare). However, when it comes to sustainability it manages to be a refill solution with an apparently worse carbon footprint than conventional packaging, which feels like a missed opportunity.

How can sustainability support honesty?
The only thing that springs to mind is the recyclability messages used by Innocent, stating the recycled content of their packaging with a promise to do better, but that was at least eight years ago. Honesty is a dangerous thing for any brand to claim or promote, as it is likely to provoke particular people to challenge the brand's honesty in all areas, or use their openness to reveal facts which could be interpreted negatively.

The power of the internet is quick to expose any weakness in brand claims. Brands tend to prefer to imply honesty subliminally through the use of subtle qualities such as simplicity, down to earth language on pack, homespun materials and finishes, etc.

Technology
A pack design is always constrained by the technology required to produce and process it, and the constant challenge is designing for machines that are optimised for speed rather than flexibility. Recently, we have found a greater willingness from some of our clients to break this paradigm and embrace alternative production methods and unfamiliar formats, but the reality is that filling lines are mostly very limited in their variability and very expensive and time consuming to install, replace - or even adapt.

So if there is one thing I would push machinery manufacturers and factory managers on, it is to develop machinery and lines with a higher level of modularity and easier adjustability.

Online
Internet shopping hasn't yet changed the way packs are designed, but surely this is only a matter of time. The increase in online shopping is steep and is likely to continue to the point where many products will be purchased more from a computer screen than a shelf. This must lead to a re-evaluation of the role of packaging.

The brand and product communication can be achieved more powerfully on screen, so on-pack communication could be relegated in favour of cost, efficiency or, where appropriate, aesthetics.

For example, many products are on display in the home, and the current loud and busy graphics designed for attention on shelf are out of place. These can be removed to allow for products that have a more comfortable fit with the consumer's décor.

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