Color Theory and Packaging

 

 

Ever wonder what goes into designing a product package? Above you'll see my product packaging for our newest line, FISH BOWL FUN. The product is a decorative band that goes around a fish bowl; it's whimsical, youthful and in a word, FUN. The packaging really needed to reflect this position. I created this happy little betta fish and designed the backer card to look like a fish bowl. 

Now onto the color...

If you look at the color wheel, you have primary and secondary colors (as well as tertiary colors, but we'll cover that another time). Primary colors are red, blue and yellow and secondary colors are green, orange and purple. If you want to make a color appear more vibrant, pair it with its opposite on the color wheel. I applied this when I selected an orange fish against the bright blue background. If you look at a few other options below my final, you'll note they just don't carry the same visual impact. It happened to really work in my application (the blue of the bowl and orange on the fish), but often it's hard to make use of yellow and purple and other such complimentary colors.

I really wanted to make the name of the product and the betta fish "pop" so I used another technique: warm colors come forward (orange) and cool colors recede (blue). Overall, I was pleased with the final package and its vibrant color scheme. I'm also lucky to test market on my Little Peanuts because if their eyes light up, I know I hit the mark.