Packaging might be the most important element of a product. Whether the product is a consumable good, some fancy hardware, a service, or even a website — that item might not even be touched if the package doesn’t communicate to the consumer.
In this post, we’ve collected inspiring, unique, and brilliant packaging to demonstrate that good, timeless design speaks louder than words.
Coffee Time Bag and Cups
Yes, I am feeling like it’s time for some coffee after seeing this. The intricate patterns, and bold browns are both soothing and complex, just like a good cup of Joe.
Americano Black
Breaking from the traditional feel, Americano Black is a much cooler design for a chilled coffee beverage. At the same time, it keeps an elegant feel about itself.
MyCuppa Tea/Coffee
Genius at work in these Mug designs. Perhaps as a functional bonus, mixing your tea or coffee perfectly every time is much more easily achieved.
PANTONE Mugs
And for the more Colour savvy who won’t settle for cream-based names, W2’s got collections of PANTONE mugs to fill the void. If only it came in PANTONE 312 C… that’s a blissful blue, eh?
PANTONE Universe Bag
But W2 didn’t stop with mugs. Oh, no… They’ve got a selection of bags too. Carrying one of these is a really good way to declare your geeky love for colour.
Peared
Here’s some wonderful branding done by Conor Hagan for the juice Peared, a combination of pear juice and other juices from an array of fruits. The way the shapes are all put together to create pears is simple and elegant.
Wine In A Can
Seemingly borrowing the idea from recent Energy Drink packaging, Wine In A Can puts forth an organic, trendy design that is very unique.
M5
What happens when Coke, the largest brand in the world, starts losing its hold on their core consumer? They hire 5 design groups (dubbed the Magnificent 5, or M5) to reestablish that grip. The result is some of the most creative design work we’ve ever seen for caffeinated beverages.
Wine Labels by Jordan Jelev
Returning to the more traditional Wine packaging, Jordan Jelev has selected several of his beautiful Wine Label designs over the past few years. A nice mix of class and modern design in his works.
MINIBLACK
A Vibrant, Feel-Good design for MINIBLACK done by Drasik. We’ve posted a tutorial for creating the colorful glowing type effect used in some of the designs created by Drasik.
Private Brand Bottled Water
The packaging for this bottled water simply makes one think cold, refreshing thoughts. Wonderful type work, and a beautiful minimalist label design.
Keen Fruit
Using the contents of your container to magnify the packaging? Now that’s a cool idea. Keen Fruit, though simple, manages to communicate it’s product very effectively.
Equal Exchange
The Typography and Color work done in the Equal Exchange packaging has been featured on Tutorial9 in the past. It’s so good, we’ve decided to feature it once more. Inspiring, easy on the eyes, and clear messages all around.
Milk Chocolate
Why hasn’t this hit my local grocery store already? I don’t usually think about Cows when I’m craving Chocolate, but this branding seems like a really great idea. It definitely sticks out from the usual.
Pate Monodosis
Creatively shaped, petite packaging done by Marcos Prack.
Chocolate Packaging
A series of creative packaging for chocolates by Yael Miller. I tend to be incredibly biased in regards to anything chocolate related to begin with, and these designs do nothing but fascinate me more.
W A S A R A
Disposable, organic, simple, beautiful, casual, elegant… paper-ware? W A S A R A presents a fantastic lineup of incredible paper plates that are as impressive as they are natural.
Sony Packaging
Sleek, professional feeling package design for various Sony products by Jesse Kaczmarek.
Halo 3: Legendary Edition
You don’t have to be a gamer to appreciate the casing design for Bungie’s “Halo 3: Legendary Edition”. The outside box is sleek and professional — the inside casing for the disk set is modeled after the helmet of the game’s protagonist.
Adobe CS4
Adobe never ceases to amaze with their creative package design for their Creative Suites.
Homemade Creative Packaging
Creative packaging straight out of some common home materials.
ISO50 Button Sets
Not your typical product, but these badges come packaged with the incredible artwork of Scott Hansen. Nice way to add a personal touch to such a simple product.
Helvetica 2008 Calendar
If it were not already August, I’d surely attempt to purchase one of these extraordinary calendars designed by Greig Anderson. 365 individual pages with large type make up this well thought out concept, designed in two sizes (A3 and A5). Please make another for 2009 Greig…
Fingerprint
Fingerprint is a book that demonstrates the art of using handmade elements in graphic design. It does an incredible job showcasing beautiful designs — and gives information for how they were created — and the book design itself is quite beautiful.
Beauty Engineered Forever Products
These product packages by B_E_E don’t waste anytime telling you what they’re made to do. Great Type, Nice Colors, and awesome idea for branding a product lineup.
Beautao Skincare
More wonderful package designs by Yael Miller, putting creative pattern and color work to good use for a lineup of Skin care products.
Insist Breakfast
Well, I’d wear them. Then again, I’m an egg guy, so that’s no surprise. Yellow isn’t typically a color I think of when looking for new footwear, but these seem to pull off the color quite well.
Inspirational Original Product and Packaging Design
A nice roundup of original product and packaging design over at Abduzeedo.
Dot Grid Book
A bit more subtle than a grid book, the Dot Grid Book provides designers with a means to sketch out ideas while not leaving grid lines to distract from what’s important.
Beck, “The Information”
This album is essentially packaged in a blank grid cover, while the inside of the package is filled with several sheets of stickers. Consumers can create their own design on the front and back of the case, completely customizing their own package.
Beautiful and Expressive Packaging Design
A comprehensive collection of beautiful and expressive packaging design over at Smashing Magazine.
Packaging Design Inspiration
Dzine Blog has also collected a series of package designs that are certainly worth a look.
The Power of The Box
As well as thecoolhunter.net where they’ve showcased some package designs.
Looking for More Creative Package Design?
There are some great sites and places out there were you can explore inspirational package design. One of the best we’ve found is TheDieline.com, a blog that frequently showcases unique package design.
If you’re interested in sharing some designs of your own, there are several groups on Flickr that may be worth checking out. Packaging Design and Crafty Packages are groups that stick out — and are even fun to browse through if you’re not a designer yourself.
Inspired by this showcase? Be sure to subscribe to our RSS Feed for more inspirational posts!
July’s Tutorial Roundup
Tip: Use The Grid in Photoshop
Text Effect Quickie: Delicious Chocolate Text
Amazing Retro Rainbow Curves
XFX’s graphics cards are beautifully boxed and design too: http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=XFX&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi
@Jazcash: Love the actual product design of those. The enclosure for the actual chip is really creative!
Thanks for sharing Jazcash!
Wow, there’s some amazing packaging work, I love to find inspiration in things not online or not in the same realm as you are working in.
Nice packaging roundup. Some really cool stuff.
Lovely post, very inspiring. How I’d love to work in the industry that produces these.
EDIT: LOL, I didn’t realize that you had another one of the guy’s packaging up here [he's the one with the huge calendar].
“Milk Chocolate
Why hasn’t this hit my local grocery store already? I don’t usually think about Cows when I’m craving Chocolate, but this branding seems like a really great idea. It definitely sticks out from the usual.”
Are you kidding me?!!!!!!!!!!
lol I could send you THOSE! As I come from Latvia where they make these! hahahaha I could never imagine anything that comes from here would end up HERE lol
Really cool list, it will be very useful for a project that I’m working on. Thanks a lot David
Some nice stuff… i never gave a thought about this as a creative output.
sweet…though no apple? haha I always love their simplicity in package design
I love how much effort and thought are put into today’s designs for packaging. The Adobe CS4 suite packaging looks very appealing. I also LOVE the Dot Grid Book but it is a bit expensive.
Love the Adobe CS4 boxes, the use of colour and simple shapes is inspiring.
great compilaton
While there’s not much design on this, the bottle itself is a pretty cool shape. Who knew water could be interesting.
http://www.h2ecowater.com/
The wine in a can bottles are really neat.
Its too bad everything isn’t designed to this standard.. would make the everyday things in life just that little bit less duller.
Lovely packaching works! Just great..I can’t miss CS4 creative designs, I enjoy the best! Thanks!
very inspiring.yay cs4=)
Very nice blog Tutorial9..
Some nice designs. But I can see the ‘Pantone’ designs more to the liking of our Mac user friends.
Cool designs! I love the chocolate packaging.
@Ryan G: I really loved those, and I’m not a Mac user
I thought it was a really creative idea - being able to describe the creaminess of your coffee in terms of definable color.
Why would PANTONE Mugs be realted to the Mac world only? Don’t we boring, everyday, normal Windows users get a chance? Can’t we have standard? The inhumanity!
Please, excuse me.
On a much more relaxed note, congrats David, wonderful post. Some of these things are going straight into my Inspiration folder.
So much inspiration in one web page….this is why I love the www!!
Errr. No. That Sony packaging doesn’t look at all like an Apple iPod/iPhone box. Noting like it. Whatever gave you that idea!
Nice collection. Some inspiring ideas there. Thanks.
very good designs… unique and pleasing to the eyes
Nice and informative article…
Phenomenal! I love the cuppatea and cuppacoffe.
Really cool. Some of the packaging in really well designed!
Fantastic examples of packaging design. I love the the “I’ll do your Dirty Work” and the “Trust me with your delicates” etc. That’s an amazing concept, that works and looks so nice. It’s posts like this that really prove your 9rules membership was well deserved I say! Nice one.
Great examples of super design! Simple, accurate and professional.
Awesome designs. Thanks!
Really cool!
A lot of cool stuff here. These things also make great x-mas presents for designers.
@liam: Thanks liam
I’m finding more and more that the physical world is playing a role in inspiring my digital creations. Glad so many of our viewers enjoyed these incredible designs as much as I did!
Hi there! This was a wonderful and inspiring post. I enjoyed viewing all of these imaes. I just had a guest graphic designer write a post for my blog. The article was about her label package design process - I thought that your readers might be interested in seeing it. Thanks again.
Rachel
That is a very nice list. Thanks.
I really like that Wine in a can thing.. Wow, that is pretty design. I would feel bad throwing that can away
Cool!
Nice collection.