Oden

So, packaging is kind of my thing. I'm guilty of being one of those people who buys products based on their brand identity and the aesthetics of their packaging. I'm drawn to companies who push out swanky media kits and annual reports. There, I said it.

I recently got a new Speck CandyShell case for my iPhone, and was completely floored by the packaging in which it came. It was beautiful! The words fresh, modern and inventive don't really do this piece of packaging justice. Aside from the look of the package, it was also utterly easy to reassemble, say you needed to repack your item and return it. It was multi-lingual, yet not overwhelming. I work on bilingual packaging, and it's often difficult to treat multiple languages equally. This piece made accommodating six languages look effortless. It also incorporated basic snaps as closures instead of something permanent like glue or a perforated tear strip. I kept the packaging out and continued to go back and admire it over the course of a whole weekend, until my husband began to make fun of my analytical dissection. Yes, the box was cool, but the case for my phone was even more amazing.

Another example of "knock you down & draw you in" packaging is Benefit cosmetics. While aimlessly wandering the aisles of Sephora one day, I passed the Benefit section. Like a zombie drawn to brains, I was instantly loading up my cart with these products that lived in bold and exciting packaging smeared with comic book style imagery and drastic dot patterns. Before I knew it I was sneaking back to the Benefit section of Sephora every week, hoping my husband didn't notice the abundance of new make up I'd acquired.

It shows just how much a company cares about their brand when its products are wrapped in the loving arms of creative and innovative packaging. So I ask, what does your packaging say about your brand?