Words and images on packaging

When you go to a grocery store and you’re standing in the middle of an aisle, what are you looking at? Ads.

Each of the packaging is an advertisement vying for your attention so you will be tempted to buy it. Usually it consists of the company’s name in huge letters and a picture of the product to give you a preview of what’s inside of the can. In order to catch your attention better, the companies usually add a visual element that pops out of the design to catch your attention.

For example, this Progresso soup can shows that it’s “NEW!” and has “45% LESS SODIUM” in bright green and yellow shapes to capture the shopper’s attention. It also has a green band across the top to designate it as a “HEALTHY FAVORITE”. These colorful shapes and labels are used to give the words a sense of hierarchy to the words. It gives importance to certain words over others. The net weight of the can is certainly not as important as the name of the soup, and so on and so fourth. It’s fascinating to see what marketing tools are used on packaging and how the design is used along with marketing sayings to try to get a shopper to buy their product.