Package Design - March 2013 - 25

florescent side,” Nunziato explains. “Their products
are for a consumer who’s probably not feeling well
and just needs to find the product and get back
home, get in their pajamas and feel better.” His own
agency used this strategy when redesigning packaging for Contac, which includes a bright and light
blue for the liquid version of the cold medicine.
These color choices are more viable options
today because printing technology has gotten better, with more package printers offering expanded
gamut offerings for process color and more options
for giving spot colors more spark.
“Some iconic brands have discovered the power
of the new printing technologies,” Bititsios says.
“Heineken has been using this green color for
years. It’s a brand signature; it’s important. But
Heineken kept up with the time and updated its
green. The color’s more bright; it’s more modern.
So the brand modernized the packaging without
actually sacrificing any of the brand equities.”
Sometimes you can even use a category color
and make it your own. “A color can start as a trend
in a category and then someone uses it in a way
where it becomes theirs,” Newmaster says. “Nickelodeon is a good example. Pantone 021 Orange
always represented cheer and usually a kid’s product. But Nickelodeon hit the market with all these
licensed products packaged in this orange and
“owned” that orange. Then designers shied away
from the orange because it could make your brand
seem like it was trying to look like Nickelodeon and
not do its own thing.”
Little Big Brands tries to avoid this problem for
its clients with a more custom approach. Nunziato
explains, “We almost never use CMYK unless we’re

dealing with a photograph.” Pamela Long, partner
and director of client services at Little Big Brands,
adds, “More than ever, clients are trying to separate
themselves from retail store brands. One of the
ways that we can really help brands do that is by
creating custom colors for them.”

Create options
“We’re seeing and using flourishes of color with
fine details that aren’t necessarily directly tied to
the brand but speak to an expression of the brand,”
says Goodwin. “You see it on the Lean Cuisine
packaging that came out a year or two ago, you see
it all over Clairol Herbal Essences’ packages. It’s
almost like a jewel filigree detail that’s just an
embellishment but it gives you another opportunity
to add color that differs from the trend at the other
end of the spectrum where packages have a solid
flood of color, white or black. These little details
allow you to add layers of visual communication
about flavor, scent or occasion.”
Creating design systems with options is compulsory at Newmaster’s agency, no matter how
many colors are being used by current SKUs.
“When we’re working on a design project, and I
know there’s as little as five flavors, I always say,
‘With this initial design, we know the colors we
have to use and not use whether they be brand or
category specific or flavor specific. But what if the
client does a line extension someday? Let’s make
sure we build the color palette for 20 products.’
Don’t design yourself in a corner.” PD

WFM pumped
up the shelf
appeal for this
garden product
by adding
bright colors
to the label
but keeping
the brand’s
bottle green.

For articles on similar topics, visit the Design
Principles channel on PackageDesignMag.com.
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Package Design - March 2013

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