Creative packaging inspiration ~modern & vintage~
11.09.07Filed Under: Art & Design, Inspiration, Resources

Packaging is one of the most common example of graphic design in the world. Apart from displaying the important information, the packaging has become an important sales tool. With the use of illustration, color, typography and even various packaging materials, designers can create an attractive image and build a brand identity that is eye-catchy and impactful, yet preserve the contents.
A beautiful and attractive packaging can boost the selling and stands out from the rack of competitors. For example the IZZE beverage packaging shown above, their sales grew 450% per year over the first two years without any TV commercials, print and web advertising. It must be its unique & simplicity of graphic approach together with clear and refreshing typeface that attracts people to buy it.

I still remember when I was in Form 5, the tuition center I attend sells cold drinks. I saw one drink bottle the packaging is very nice. The drink is called Clearly Canadian. I never heard of it, but I purchased the orange flavor. Because the packaging is nice, I keep the bottle after finish drinking it. Now it’s still sitting at my house. Good design becomes collectible item.
Because I’m a Multimedia Designer, I less touching on packaging designs, but I like to observe beautiful designs. Here I listed out some sites which has very nice and creative packaging designs too see, either modern or old school approach.
TheDieLine.com
The main source of packaging design inspiration. According to the webmaster Andrew Gibbs, he started theDieLine because as a packaging designer, he needs resources for research and inspiration. But he found none, so he set this site up dedicated to creative packaging design.
“Product packaging not only secures and protects a product, it is the direct link between the brand and the consumer. It is what determines if a product will be a success or failure. Packaging plays a pivotal role in influencing a consumer’s perception of the brand and product.”
Powerful Packaging Design - The Cool Hunter
A cool collection on creative packaging design. Be sure to check out more goodies by clicking the “Packaging” tag below.
ProgressPKG
You can find a variety of creative packaging designs in here, from CD packs to metal packaging. A very creative company who aim to be market leaders in the field of creative packaging.
HardFormat.org
Need more CD packaging design inspiration, then you cannot afford to miss this site. Hard Format is a little place to celebrate the brilliant of music-related design including CD, cassettes and records.

Off The Shelf
A collection of nice and memorable packaging designs that can be found in Japan.
LouiseFili.com
Louise Fili Ltd is a design firm that specialize in packaging design especially food packaging and others.
Rbird research on packaging design patterns
A useful research and resources about package design practices within specific product categories. Just download the PDF documents for reading to get a better understanding on packaging designs in one field.
Vintage Packaging collection on Flickr
Flickr again. This is a collection of old style packaging design. A good reference and knowledge on how the packaging design was executed back in the days.
Dime Store
A collection of vintage dime store packaging.

There is it, a total of 9 great sites to inspire you on nice and creative packaging design. If you find it useful, just bookmark the sites shown above or Del.icio.us this post. If you have good packaging reference site just suggest the URL below, then I will put it up.
Credits: FontFeed August Newsletter | Intro text inspired by DesignerMag Issue 2006
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I know that packaging will make a big effect. I am a consumer and I always automatically go for food or junk food with nice designs, even though they are not trendy products.
September 12th, 2007 at 7:34 pmThis is a great list of sites for inspiration. I just wrote an article that lists 180+ resources online for design inspiration and I found your article so helpful that I added your link to the article.
Thanks.
December 19th, 2007 at 12:57 amRachel
thanks for the linking Rachel! That’s a great article you had
December 19th, 2007 at 10:12 amYou are so inasanely smart and resourceful its making me want to shed tears of joy and awe.
March 10th, 2008 at 5:10 amWell i mean great post
thanks chocominty
March 10th, 2008 at 10:14 amhye there jay-han
April 9th, 2008 at 7:43 pminteresting sources! thanks for sharing.u really made my day~
you are welcome, cima.
April 10th, 2008 at 10:19 amhey guys, do you know that you can hardly find a good brand packaging designer in Malaysia?
May 16th, 2008 at 3:18 pmHmm, I don’t know about this because a great packaging design need efforts and time to design/develop until the final result. Indeed many packaging in Malaysia won’t give many impression but I can see some is quite good.
May 19th, 2008 at 5:10 pmThank you for sharing this. It helps me a lot… Thanks!!!!
May 31st, 2008 at 1:05 pm[…] Creative Packaging Inspiration […]
June 2nd, 2008 at 5:19 pmYou are welcome Vivian, and thanks Smashing Magazine for linking my site!
June 3rd, 2008 at 9:54 amLove your website! You are awesome!
June 3rd, 2008 at 9:01 pmThanks again Vivian
June 6th, 2008 at 10:09 amHey!…Man i love reading your blog, interesting posts ! it was a great Thursday .
June 20th, 2008 at 6:24 am