Last Updated on July 26, 2023 by Packoi Team
Children’s packaging is all about giving kids the right experience as they interact with your package design. You have to understand that children don’t care about your branding. They don’t care about how your packaging protects the product. All they care about is how they feel when they look at the product in the box.
This will be the focus of this article. You’ll learn about what it means to create the right design for a product box for kids. You’ll find out how to create children’s packaging that can be a part of the kids’ playtime.
The Importance of Packaging in Products for Children
A study published on Hindawi.com revealed how packaging bridges the gap between children’s products and the kids themselves. The study specifically targeted children’s packaging and how the colors, material, and type preferences of kids differ according to their age.
Companies should take note because this is important evidence that children’s packaging design plays an important role in the salability of a brand and its products. The package design matters if you want to sell more products to kids.
If you want to stay ahead of the competition, you might want to consider hiring professional designers so it’s easier to design the right children’s packaging for your products. Whether it’s a toy or food packaging design, you want your brand to be known for its fun and interactive packaging.
Why? Because if the children’s packaging experience is on point, they’ll remember your brand.
Although it’s the parents who ultimately decide to buy a product, it’s still initiated by what children prefer. If they remember having a good experience with your packaging, they would look for your branding and ask for it. So your kids’ packaging should be appealing to them.
10 Kid-Focused Product Packaging Ideas
If you want to skip the professional designers for your packaging design, that’s okay. You’ll find a lot of inspiration online on how to design packaging for kids. You’ll get fun and creative ways to ensure that kids will remember your brand through your packaging even after they’ve started playing with your product.
Just remember that you shouldn’t get carried away with the fun elements of children’s packaging. You still have to impress the parents who will buy your product. Make sure your design lives up to your branding so it gains the approval of the adults who’ll pay for it.
To help you get started, here are 10 kid-focused designs you can use as inspiration for your product boxes.
Use Colorful Characters
It’s scientifically proven that children are drawn to fun characters and bright colors. So if you’re looking for a packaging design that’ll resonate well with kids, have colorful cartoon characters printed on your product box.
There are many ways to apply this idea in children’s packaging. But it all starts with creating a colorful character that kids can identify with your brand. It could be a cartoon of a child, animal, or inanimate object. Use it regularly on your packaging so people, especially kids, will recognize it as a part of your branding and style.
The more you use it on your packaging, the more that children will associate it with the brand. When they play or consume the product, they’ll connect that with the character. When they see the same character in another children’s packaging, they’ll recognize it quickly.
Make It Interactive
Your product packaging design should also be interactive. Create children’s packaging boxes to be converted into something else.
Maybe the kids can use the package design and turn it into another toy. Or you can print a story on the back of the box packaging so kids can read it. Use a comic-strip style in your storytelling. It could even be a story about your branding.
If you print something educational in the packaging, parents will appreciate that. It’ll boost your brand image and make them want to choose you over your competitors.
Put Windows and Cutouts
Another children’s packaging option for kids is to put windows and cutouts. Kids and even parents are more likely to look at a product if the packaging can show them what’s inside the box.
If a completely transparent box doesn’t fit your branding strategy, create a packaging design with a window or cutout. For instance, if you’re selling cookies, draw a cartoon character with its mouth open. Position the shape of the window where the open mouth is. This is a great way to tie the cutout shape with the package design.
This design will make your customers feel excited about what’s inside the packaging.
Install Secret Compartments
Here’s a clever product packaging design – put secret compartments. It would even be better if you add a surprise in that part of the children’s packaging.
Maybe you can add a secret flap that reveals a part of the packaging where the kids can get additional accessories. Or it could contain a piece of paper that reveals the story about the product they bought. This way, your packaging can enhance the play experience of kids.
It would be best to incorporate this design into all the children’s packaging. Make your brand known for the surprises that you put in every packaging. It’ll be a great branding strategy that’ll make you known as a fun and innovative company.
Include Glow-In-The-Dark Features
Making your packaging design glow-in-the-dark will make it incredibly cool in the eyes of kids. Sometimes, that feature alone will make the children’s packaging more appealing than the product inside.
This will also ensure that the packaging won’t be thrown out immediately. The kids would probably want to keep it and that can help with packaging waste problems. It’s like adding an extra dimension to your package design.
But you have to be careful with this. Test it first to ensure that the glow-in-the-dark feature won’t make the packaging look creepy.
Provide Tools to Personalize It
Another way to make the product packaging design fun is by equipping it with tools for personalization. It could be as simple as printing your brand name in black and white so the kids can color it. Or you can add a blank space in the packaging so kids can write on it.
You can even add stickers so the kids can put them on the packaging and create their designs with them. Make sure your branding elements are on that sticker so when the kids decide to put it somewhere else, it’ll be like free advertising for you.
Personalizing the children’s packaging will make the kids treasure it more. They’ll be more likely to keep it with them as part of their collection. They can turn the children’s packaging into something more special to them than just a box that got them a product.
Think of a Kid-Friendly Theme
This is one of the common packaging design ideas you can implement. Choose a theme that you know kids would love to see on your packaging. Things like space exploration, wildlife safari, underwater animals, playing at the park, etc.
Of course, the theme of the packaging will have to fit whatever children’s products are inside. But making the children’s packaging revolve around themes that kids are familiar with and enjoy very well is a great way to get their attention so they’ll focus on your branding and not your competitors.
Play with Fonts
Apart from the typical cartoon characters in the packaging design for kids, you can also play with typography. Use colorful fonts in different sizes as the main design in your children’s packaging.
Choose font styles that look like handwriting or have a cartoonish flair to them. Put them around the package design strategically so kids will be encouraged to look at your box packaging from all angles.
The text can be about your brand. Narrate a story that you know children will be interested in reading.
Add Moving Components
This is a tricky packaging design to implement. But if you execute it well, this will make your children’s packaging memorable and fun.
A great example of moving components is a flap that reveals a window in the packaging. Kids can open and close it to reveal the product inside. This could also be a part of the box packaging that children can slide to reveal some information or a character.
The movable components of the packaging will turn it into a toy that kids can have fun with.
Turn It Into a Puzzle
If you want to take the movable components to another level, you can create your children’s packaging design into a huge puzzle – literally. Put perforations around the box packaging so the kids can easily remove the parts of the puzzle.
The kids can combine all the perforated parts to reveal a hidden image or message in the box. This creative design for children’s packaging can be about something educational.
Use this chance to tell kids about your branding and what sets your brand apart from your competition. This could be a powerful way to connect with the young minds of your customers.
5 Important Elements of Children’s Packaging Design
In the world of children’s packaging, it’s not just the visual appeal that’s important. The overall experience of the kids and the approval of the parents matter.
This is why if you want your brand to be popular with your target market, you need to consider 2 sets of people when designing your packaging. Your branding strategy and package design should resonate with both kids and their parents. If either one of them fails to approve your packaging, it won’t help increase your sales.
Your packaging design for kids will only be effective if it has the right elements. Here are the 5 must-haves in your children’s packaging that’ll help you get loyal customers.
Pop of Colors
Start by making your product packaging design colorful. Several studies have proven that bright colors in children’s packaging can make it incredibly appealing to kids.
While you can use other colors that are more subdued, it’s the pop of colors that gets children excited about your product. So make sure your packaging comes alive through your color choices.
Sometimes, you don’t even need graphics. Having the right color combination is enough to catch+ the eye of kids and make them approach your packaging for a closer look.
Brand Design
Your branding should be evident in your packaging design for kids. The colors, logo, and other brand elements should resonate with kids – especially if they are your main market. While you want to create memorable children’s packaging for your product, you also want the kids to associate it with your brand.
That way, when both kids and their parents see your branding in any of your other packaging, they’ll recognize it. They’ll remember how your package design made them feel in the past. Use your packaging to strengthen brand recognition and help increase sales for your other products.
Fun and Interactive
This is very important in the product packaging design for kids. It has to be fun and interactive. Use the packaging as a preview of what the children’s products can offer.
There are many ways to make children’s packaging fun. You can litter the box with several graphic designs that’ll delight the kids. Print games on the surface of the packaging so kids can indulge in them.
Make the children’s packaging reusable by turning the box into a toy itself. That’ll make your packaging sustainable as well.
Product Enhancement
Although the focus of the packaging design is the kids, you shouldn’t forget about the children’s products. Your package design should complement the product within. The children’s packaging should help create the best customer experience so the kids would want to recreate the experience using your other products.
This is also how you can make parents approve of your products. If they see their kids enjoying your packaging and the functionality of the box, you’ll succeed in impressing them. If you can make it an educational experience, that’ll even be better.
Safe for Use
Finally, safety is an important element in any packaging design for kids. This is especially true for food packaging. Your packaging should follow strict industry standards to ensure the safety of kids while they use your product or come into contact with your packaging.
Not only that, parents would want to be sure that their kids are safe with your brand. Your branding and package design should assure them that they don’t have to worry about anything that comes from your brand.
Make them trust that you can provide both fun and safety for their kids.
Let’s Make Your Product Box Design Fun for Kids. Packoi Printing Have Several Options You Can Choose From.
Creating children’s packaging is a little more involved compared to packaging design for adults. Children have different preferences and they focus on the fun elements of your packaging. But at the same time, you have to consider what their parents will think.
While there are different factors to be considered in creating an effective children’s packaging design, it becomes easier if you have the right samples to draw inspiration from.
If you need help in designing a product box for kids that’ll make your brand stand out among your competition, get in touch with Packoi Printing. We’ve worked with companies to help them create the right packaging design that’ll impress kids of all ages.
Give us a call and we’ll send you a fair quotation in no time.
