The Application of Packaging Visual Brand and VI Concept (Part 2)

3 Components of Visual Packaging Design and VI Design Principles

How to form a brand's visual image? For packaging design, the main requirement is: no matter how diversified the company's products or how to update, the company's original fonts, logos, graphics, colors, etc. must follow the VI design principles To ensure the consistency of all elements before and after the formation of a distinctive brand of visual identity.

3.1 Font Design

Font is one of the important visual elements in the integration of brand communication. There are a wide variety of fonts that can represent endless imaginations and can express various design styles. Font design attaches representative emotions to words or letters to form a unique style, which leads to some sort of cognition: high and narrow fonts appear elegant; large and round fonts appear gracious; hand-written fonts show People-oriented values; capital letters reflect authority and aggressiveness; JJ, writing letters give people a brave, plain impression and so on. The design of the font can promote individuality and form the "tone" of the product. From the perspective of VI, packaging design and series packaging should be applied around the principles of standard fonts.

3.2 Logo and Graphic Design

The logo in the VI concept is regarded as the main body of the corporate image, the main embodiment of the corporate brand and cultural value, and also the specific symbol of the gold content of the company. The packaging design of any product is based on the brand image to start R&D and replacement. As an enterprise's image, the logo can be directly applied to the packaging design to build a brand's visual image, or it can be formed into a graphic and designed in an eye-catching manner. The use of logos in packaging design can achieve a good effect of transmitting information and is an important feature of product packaging design in corporate identification. Graphics are elements that enhance the characteristics of a product and have a sense of symbol.

3.3 color design

The color design discussed in this article is not how to reflect the individual color of a certain product packaging design, but how to form a color sense of unity under the premise of diversified product packaging to build a brand's visual image. This is in line with the company's standard color principles in the VI concept, such as Coca-Cola's Red, Volkswagen's Blue and other corporate spot color effects.

To emphasize the color of the product image, not only to use transparent packaging or color photos to fully represent the inherent color of the product, but to use more colors that can reflect the image of large categories of goods, establish and communicate the brand's visual image, and enable consumers to produce The reflection and recognition of similar signals quickly rely on color to determine the brand and content of the package. Therefore, color is an important visual component for brand recognition.

4 VI Concepts and Product Updates, Visual Updates

A company from registration to development, its products from scratch and constantly updated changes in the visual image of the unified brand is also emerging new issues, that is, how to implement the VI concept of continuity, not only to maintain the brand's original image, It also highlights the characteristics of its new products. Similarly, how to achieve orderly and easy identification in the promotion of packaging design is also a subject worthy of study.

In this regard, Coca-Cola Company still provides us with a typical case. On February 18th, 2003, Coca-Cola (China) Beverage Company announced that it would officially replace the packaging and use the new logo. The new streamlined Chinese font designed by Hong Kong famous designer Chen Hongjian replaces the fonts Coca Cola has been using in the Chinese market since 1979. The change is a Chinese font used by the Coca-Cola Company's cI system in the Chinese market so far. It is also a bold attempt by Coca-Cola to visually identify and change VIs in the original cI system, and is known as Coca Cola's face change. Faced with a rapidly-developing society, ever-changing living ideology and ever-changing market competition, this change reflects the company's attitude of actively seeking development and winning development. However, the change in the image of the Coca-Cola VI is not a complete subversion of the original product identification system, but rather a gradual adjustment made to keep the original image in pace with the times and maintain brand vitality. In fact, Coca-Cola will modify and update the content of a series of cI identification systems, such as trademarks and packaging, in order to adapt to changing market tastes, almost every few years in the world. Figure 1 shows the latest design styles of Coca-Cola Company abroad. From the figure, we can see the unity of the brand visual image constructed by the use of VI design concept in product packaging and containers.

Coincidentally, Coca-Cola’s old rival Pepsi is also the same.

However, this change has always maintained a gradual measure, that is, innovation while carefully retaining the previously accumulated brand equity, so that the evolution path of the brand's visual image shows a beautiful transition, no breaks and jumps.

Another example is the famous Sichuan liquor Jiannanchun, its historical accumulation can be traced back to China's Tang Dynasty, its brand has been deeply rooted in people since ancient times, corporate culture and product quality can be described as superior. Several years ago, the Jiannanchun winery boldly overturned its original packaging, and the new packaging expressed its anti-counterfeiting features with a new look. When they were just listed, consumers were very unfamiliar, and companies had to spend a lot of money on the use of film and television advertisements to interpret the functions of new packaging, and the market experienced a process of re-acceptance. It can be seen that how to learn and draw lessons from Western VI's management philosophy. It is self-evident that the establishment of brand visual image and the importance of design management for new and old companies, especially in product and packaging design.

5 Conclusion

If the individual image of packaging design is an indispensable tool for market competition, then the unity of packaging design under the concept of VI is a continuation of the life of this weapon. Research shows that 80% of the external information people perceive is transmitted to the brain through vision. The all-round development of the market economy has resulted in a wide variety of similar products, but its quality, grades, specifications, and features are all very different. Therefore, the establishment of brand visual image is a problem that cannot be ignored when a designer designs a series of packaging and product diversification.

Zhou Yong University of Shanghai for Science and Technology

Source: Packaging Engineering