Customer Reviews

What is Packaging Design? (Essential Design Handbook)

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This is a relatively thick, small-sized book that's a joy to hold in your hands. It's compact, the bright hard-cover is silky and the inner layout is clear and glossy. The book is so easy to handle that I'd take it with me everywhere if I had a good reason to do so! It's a joy to hold, to read and to look at.

The book is divided into small chapters, covering most topics related to the universe of packaging design: market considerations, legislation, structural design and packaging types, surface graphics, typography and more. But each chapter is but a mere synopsis; this is not a book that expands much on these key topics, and it ends up not being very useful if you're trying to learn the specifics of each topic. The book also doesn't cover specific packaging materials at all, like other packaging books do. This is a great introduction to packaging design, but that's all. It's also a wonderful source of eye-candy, as each chapter features full page reproductions of original and innovative packages. Each image is commented and generally mentions the designer of each package, but there is no note on the materials, which leaves you wondering in a lot of cases. The last portion of the book is devoted to (very) brief case studies, which, once again, are mostly for show. But that said, it's a great show! Most of the featured packaging designs are truly original and beautiful.

"What is packaging design?" focuses mostly on theory and not on practical aspects, and that's simultaneously its strength and its downfall. In the end, you will know what packaging design is, but you won't know much about the process behind packaging design. If you're looking for the latter, try a different book.

Well organized and concise with lots of photos of good packaging design. A great book to turn to for inspiration.

This book is very informative for 3D design and packaging design. Very good information for the beginning designer. I would definately recommend it to anyone looking to expand their knowledge of product and packaging design.