Color

Taking a dye out is a formulation project. Keeping the brand legible on shelf is a design one. Five brands, Pedialyte, Listerine, Children’s Tylenol, Paul Mitchell and more, show the three routes through a colorant transition and what each asks of packaging design.

Frequently asked questions FD&C Red No. 3 and packaging How many drug products actually contain FD&C Red No. 3? 1,836 US drug labels list it, resolving to 1,451 marketed products, or about 1.06 percent of everything sold in the country. For scale, FD&C Red No. 40 appears on 19,444 labels, Blue No. 1 on 25,371

The short version Creators are now the primary distribution channel for CPG launches, and the product they seed has to survive an unscripted unboxing, not a studio shot. TikTok Shop is on pace for $23.41 billion in US ecommerce sales in 2026, and every one of those views is a close-up of packaging the brand

Frequently asked questions What a rush actually costs Does a rush comp mean lower quality? No, not if it’s scoped right. A rush costs a fee and a tradeoff: you match fewer dimensions to production and match the right ones. The dimension the decision turns on is production-real; the rest is representative. That’s aimed quality,

Frequently asked questions The hero-shoot comp, answered. Why not just shoot a production unit?+ Because a production unit is built to survive shipping, not a macro lens. It carries small imperfections, seams, scuffs, slightly-off color, that don’t read on a shelf but that studio light and high resolution amplify into the story. The shot then

Frequently asked questions Small-format and social packs, answered. Why do mini and travel-size packs need their own design brief? Because shrinking a full-size design breaks legibility, color accuracy, and hierarchy at small scale. In US prestige fragrance, mini and travel juices grew 12% by units and discovery sets 41% through the first nine months of

Research validity Frequently asked questions Why do research prototypes need to be production-accurate?+ Because shoppers respond to the whole physical object, not just the artwork. A stimulus that’s off on color or finish changes the reaction and produces confident but misleading results. As Luke Cahill puts it, in-context research lives or dies on what you

Frequently asked questions The budget case, answered. How do I get budget approved for a packaging redesign? Frame it as a business outcome (share defense, a price tier, fixing a pack that’s losing), show the full and honest cost, and include validation in the ask so the decision is de-risked. Lead with the problem the

Rush pre-flight Frequently asked questions What do I need to send to start a rush comp today? Seven things, together: a print-ready dieline with the structure, final artwork at the correct scale, a real color target (Pantone, measured values, or a swatch), the substrate and material spec, a physical reference of the current pack, the

The review date moved up. A ten-day comp can still be production-real on the one dimension the decision turns on. Here’s what it can and can’t be, and the four moves to make.