458 PW JAN2022
By Shayne Tilley, Contributing Editor
How to Leverage 2022’s Biggest Packaging Design Trends looking to break the mold. If you want to incorporate it yourself, start by looking at any illustrations or imagery used on your packaging and then remove them! If you feel they are integral to communicating your product, consider how you could use type instead. What other words are available for you to work with in your design? Don’t be confined to just letting your brand name take center stage—look at your product name, any supplementary copy, even your ingredients list, and see where you can bend traditional hierarchy rules to focus on another part of the text. From there, look to your brand colors and see whether you can inject any contrasting hues to give your label a boost of energy!
2021 wasn’t exactly the breath of fresh air many of us had hoped for, but there’s a certain air of optimism as we look toward 2022 that is already having an impact on design trends for the year ahead. Whether you’re looking to evolve your packaging in order to better serve your consumers’ needs or you just want to give your brand and products a totally new look in a bid to leave 2021 where it belongs (far behind us), here’s how you can leverage three of the biggest design styles set to shape packaging in the year ahead.
1. Eccentric text-centric design It can be easy to forget that type design is an intricate artform in itself. While its main role is communication, typography is not always just meant to be read. From conveying emotion to demonstrating a brand’s personality, clever typography serves multiple purposes, and in one of the biggest packaging trends for 2022, we’re seeing it used in more unconventional ways than ever before.
2. Y2K aesthetic reigns supreme
Image credit: 2DADS
Image credit: Packaging design by goopanic on 99designs
Forgoing photography and illustrations, eccentric text-centric design instead balances white and negative space with playful typefaces in even more playful colors. In some cases, readability is even left second to aesthetics as experimentations in line thickness and text hierarchy focus on the letters as the artform. This design style leans into an overarching anti-design movement we’re seeing in graphic design in 2022, so it’s perfect for brands
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Interestingly, a large number of this year’s design trends are rooted in nostalgia. Not only that, but they also take inspiration from some of the louder, maybe even polarizing, design styles of decades like the ’80s, ’90s, and ’00s. One in particular that is seeping back into all facets of popular culture is the Y2K aesthetic. Synonymous with the turn of the century, this 90’s take on cyberpunk merged the grunge style popular at the time with a world that was obsessed with technology and cyber culture, brimming with millennium-inspired optimism. Although this style was ubiquitous in its time, its novelty became old and tired quickly. Until now, it has remained quite firmly in the decade it was born. However, such is the cyclical nature of trends and after another truly challenging year, consumers and brands alike continue to seek comfort in the design styles of the past. While the Y2K style is gaudy, a little bit tacky, and experimental, there’s also something comforting and attractive in its appealing familiarity. Whether your target market is a younger demographic or you’re just looking to inject some youth and playfulness into your packaging,
Image credit: Chubby Snacks
12/24/21 10:14 AM
