Recently, I had the opportunity to give a speech for the Russian meat industry which, in package design, is many years behind compared to Western Europe.
Here it is…the pack which, by saying next to nothin, says a lot.
My book is for anyone who wants to learn tried and true ways of making packages that sell. And it’s not only the very first book on packaging communication; I hope to make it the first in a series. No doubt there’s enough to say about this misunderstood and overlooked topic to fill many books. [...]
Learning to write, forming the various letters like the teacher writing on the blackboard, is also learning to read. The same, unique movement of his hand, is equally the main tool for the graphic designer.
The Oxford dictionary tells us that a syndrome is “a characteristic combination of opinions, behaviour…” etc. The behaviour in this case is the 90% devotion by package designers to the front panel, leaving a bare 10% for the designing of the back panel which I call the service panel.
… because nobody seems to care – which is a pity, as this panel is an ideal means to strengthen the bond with the consumer! If well done it can become as interesting as the front. This is what Frito Lay have done with their Chinese potato chips design.
I have always been an admirer of Ferrero packaging and point-of-sale material and I was even more impressed when I saw how they updated the Rondnoir carton.
Recently, I had the opportunity to give a speech for the Russian meat industry which, in package design, is many years behind compared to Western Europe.
Mr Musheg Mkhitaryan, native from the Ararat region in Armenia, is a very special man. He not only built a water factory in the Ararat Valley, but after three unsuccessful design studies, he saw me on Russian television and decided on the spot that I was his man to help out with his project.
Here it is…the pack which, by saying next to nothin, says a lot.
Having the chance to work on ‘both sides of the fence’, i.e. as a designer in the design world with agencies and as a marketeer in the business world with both retailers and small and big FMCG companies I am, as many readers might have understood, often frustrated. But also thrilled, as there is so much still undone, as Ingvar Kamprad at IKEA so rightly said a few years ago.
… or maybe both! The attentive package designer has certainly noticed the great number of brands which are short and memorable, using only a letter, a number, or both.
… how to create something so unique that word-of-mouth becomes an efficient marketing tool.
… or the search for perfection. A couple of years ago I discovered that Magnum had developed an icon in the shape of an “M” very different to McDonald’s or Migros’. It had an identity of its own with the chocolaty letter and circles around, but it had no other meaning than the taste of chocolate. It was rather subdued in order not to fight the Unilever corporate heart above the Magnum logotype.
My book is for anyone who wants to learn tried and true ways of making packages that sell. And it’s not only the very first book on packaging communication; I hope to make it the first in a series. No doubt there’s enough to say about this misunderstood and overlooked topic to fill many books. [...]
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Born in Sweden and educated at the Graphic Institute in Stockholm, Lars Wallentin moved 1964 to Switzerland to the Nestlé headquarters where he was responsible, during almost 40 years, for the development of creative design solutions for the strategic brands such as Nestlé, Nescafé, Maggi, Buitoni, Nesquik or KitKat. 
