How to Design Holiday Packaging

For most people, the holidays mean gift-giving, festive dinners with friends and family, movie marathons, and other holiday activities that are done while it’s warm and cozy at home. For entrepreneurs, the holiday season is usually the busiest time of the year – the biggest opportunity to increase revenue before the year ends. But with competition so tight, entrepreneurs need to find unique and creative ways to attract potential customers. If you want to learn how to make your boxes ready for the holidays, here are some quick and useful tips for creating your holiday packaging design:

Add Images or Icons Relevant to the Holidays

Whether it’s for Halloween, Thanksgiving, Hannukah, or Christmas – there’s always a popular image or icon that you can use for your packaging design. These range from snowflakes, Christmas trees, and Santa Claus images for Christmas or carved pumpkins and witch hats for Halloween. These icons are so well-known that you don’t even have to spell out the holiday itself. Your customers will know right away that your packaging is designed for a specific holiday, which can help get them in the spirit of merrymaking and gift-giving.

Pick the Right Color Palette

Similar to images or icons, there are color palettes that are associated with each holiday. Shades and hues of orange, black, and purple are typically used for Halloween, while red, green, and white traditionally depict the Christmas season. Try to use a combination of these colors when you are designing your packaging. You can play around with the color palettes by adding one or two colors, but make sure that there’s enough room for the traditional colors. Just like popular icons or images, your customers will instantly recognize the holiday just by looking at the colors. The color palettes can also help set the mood. You can make people feel excited and festive through colors alone.

Insert Creative Holiday-themed Copy

Never underestimate the power of a good holiday-themed copy. Add a funny and witty line or a sincere and heartfelt messaging to your holiday packaging. If you want it to help boost your branding, make sure that the copy is in line with your brand voice and tone. Place the copy on the inside panel of the box so you can make a lasting impression on top of the memorable unboxing experience. You have the real estate. Why not use it to promote your brand without making the holiday packaging design overly promotional?

Learn From the Best When It Comes to Branding

Of course, you don’t want your boxes to look like any other holiday packaging that a customer can buy from a store. You want it to feature your brand. Pulling this off may be a bit difficult, but thankfully, you can find inspiration from a lot of popular brands. Starbucks, for example, is a master in incorporating their brand identity into their holiday packaging design. They use traditional color palettes, icons or images, and even generic holiday greetings on their packaging. But if you look closely, the whole design is consistent with their branding. Do a quick research and take note of how brands like Starbucks seamlessly combine their brand and traditional holiday graphic elements into one design.

HOLIDAY PACKAGING MATERIALS

So, what are your options when it comes to holiday packaging? Here are the different types of boxes that you can customize and use for the upcoming holiday season:

Mailer Boxes

Mailer boxes are perfect if you want to provide your customers an unforgettable unboxing experience. They can come in custom sizes that range from 3” x 2” x 1” for small items to 20” x 20” x 8.5” for bigger items. These boxes are made from premium corrugated cardboard materials that are not only tough but also ideal for high-quality printing. Once customized with your holiday packaging design, mailer boxes are great for in-store displays.

Product Boxes

Product boxes, on the other hand, are more suitable for retail products. Whether you are selling snacks, makeup, electronic gadgets, or other small items, these boxes are the ideal holiday packaging since they can be customized in various ways. Make them as small or as big as you want. Choose cardstock or corrugated cardboard for their material. If you want extra flair and protection, be sure to coat them with a matte, gloss, or high-gloss finish.

Shipping Boxes

Shipping boxes are for shipping in bulk or for carrying large and heavy products. Available in corrugated cardboard, both inside and outside of these boxes can be custom designed for holiday packaging. So instead of the usual big and boring shipping boxes, you can personalize them to help boost your brand recognition and entice your customers to buy your products.

DESIGN YOUR HOLIDAY PACKAGING ONLINE

Here at Packola, we want to ensure that everything you need is in one place. Aside from our handy price calculator where you can configure the specifications of your boxes and instantly know the price of your order, we also have a built-in 3D online design tool that you can use to personalize your box design.

Creating your holiday packaging design using our 3D online design tool is easy. Just select Design Your Mailer Box Online once you are done with the specs of your boxes and you will be redirected to the tool itself. Here you can add text, images, or a logo; set background color; and more. You can even modify the box specs from the tool itself. Once you are finished with your design, you can choose to save your project or go straight to placing your order.