December 20th, 2010
When shopping at my local grocery store and glancing at the aisle, one thing comes to my mind: eyesore. Any given aisle is full of branded packaging and each package is filled with flashy graphics, buzzwords, and just about any annoyance that can be thrown on there to get your attention. And when you stack these packages up with each other, you get a wall of noise and clutter with no one thing standing out from the other. Maybe it’s the artist in me but I find minimalism eye-catching. Ironically, the best way to stand out from the crowd is to be simple and minimal. Bold spaces and uncluttered messaging would catch my eye and encourage me to take a longer glance.
Sadly, this doesn’t work in the real world in the new millenium. Humans, by nature, are creatures of habit. After decades of us being exposed to cluttered packaging, we’ve grown accustomed to it and even expect it. Another factor is that big companies have brands to uphold and can’t take big risks such as rebranded packaging. Pepsi tried it recently with its Tropicana brand and they suffered greatly for it. Some of these brands were established decades ago (or even a century ago) when utilitarian messaging was the norm and design was a mere afterthought. Fast-forward to the new millenium and these established brands haven’t changed much. Even new brands showing up today come with cluttered design because it’s the “accepted” way of things. And that’s a shame.
In order for minimalist design to catch on and become accepted not just to our eyes but to our brainwashed minds, it will need time. Decades of exposure to cluttered packaging will take just as long to reverse the effects; only then can we accept minimalist packaging.
Design firm Antrepo is putting us in the right direction by taking some well-known packaged brands and giving them the minimalist treatment. Some work really well like the Red Bull and Nutella examples, but others not so well. I feel that sealed food packages where you can’t see the contents inside (e.g. Pringles and Toffifee) need to have packaging that have the inside contents shown on its cover as a graphic or photo. Nonetheless, a great step towards to minimalist movement. [A2591]
