Biggest Packaging Design Mistakes Everyone Makes | Ep 78

Alright, PDU crew buckle up for another edition of package design Un boxed. You know, I've had this conversation we're going to have today. I've had it a few times this week and it prompted  me to post a tick. Talk about this exact thing we're going to talk about today. And I got a ton of messages and I got a ton of comments.

So maybe this is a conversation that we really need to be having in a more in depth level. You see, because if you're a packaging design you've experienced these last minute rushes of a project that should have been started months ago, or if you're a hot shot agency, you might have an amazing portfolio of clients and you're missing a structural packaging designer on staff.

So you've got to go find one and you might've run out of time. You might not have the right support. You can't make the right amount of changes to your product. There's all these other things that happen. We're going to talk about the biggest mistakes that happen in packaging. And how to avoid them,  not just what they are, but how to avoid them, because  there's no point for you to point them out if I can't help you avoid them.

  The worst thing is being in-house designer, with a brand and you're ready to make big changes to your packaging, but it's easier to keep the changes superficial because you don't want to change the structure.

You don't want  all these different things happen because you might've run out of time or you don't have the right. You're not really sure what you even need, so you're probably going to run into some of these issues. You know, some of these mistakes not only we're going to talk about these mistakes, but we're also going to talk about like how to avoid them.

Like I said, because the first thing you've got to do is you got to change the way you think about your packaging design. You got to change the way that you think about how packaging interacts with your brand, how consumers interact with it. There's a lot that comes with it.

 And we're going to go into all of it. So it doesn't matter if you're a startup, a unicorn  or a heritage brand. There's something in this episode for you now, 

 before we get started talking about these mistakes, these packaging mistakes, every is going to run into. I want you to do me a favor. I want you to reach down and look at that podcast app that you're listening to this on right now. I want you to rate the show. I want you to subscribe to it.

If there's a little bell on your screen, I want you to hit that bell so you can get future notifications. Now, the reason for that is we are partnering with some really cool brands coming up here in the next few weeks and we're getting into some really in-depth conversations about how to design packaging. We're going through process.

We're going go through dieline creation. We're going to go through all the different details of how you design packaging how the biggest agencies do it. We've got some really amazing things happening, so you're not going to want to miss any of them.

 I'm also going to be giving away a sustainable t-shirts sustainable unboxing club. Check it out. We're going to be giving these away. Two people that leave reviews, right? Not everybody. We're going to give a few away in March. So if you leave reviews now you might get one in March.

We're going to pick 3, 3, 3, I'm holding up two fingers. We're going to, we're going to give away three t-shirts in March. So make sure you get your reviews in a, it doesn't matter if they're great reviews, no matter if they're terrible reviews. I just want you to leave an honest review so that I can help improve this show.

Now let's get to the whole point of this conversation. They're going to happen. They always will. But if you know what to look for, you're going to encounter fewer mistakes. One of the biggest mistakes is waiting too long to start. It's a huge mistake. I've encountered it as a designer, as a manufacturer, and even as an in-house packaging director for different brands.

This means that this one happens all the time. It's been different brands, but the same mistake. So what is waiting too long to start actually.  sometimes people don't know how long it takes to produce packaging at scale.

And it takes months not including design, not including engineering, including prototyping, just the manufacturing and logistics of materials. Just that portion of it can take months. Now, obviously, if you're making 500 boxes, it's going to be much faster, but if let's say those 500 boxes are super complex.

Like custom or specialty finishes and materials, then you're going to be in line for the same wait as somebody that's ordering 200,000 boxes that are much simpler. It's just how it goes.

So here's what happens when you start your packaging late. When you wait too long to start your packaging, you're not just going to pay more. That's not just because you're rushing, you know, you've got to calculate rush prices. But you're rushing processes. You're disrupting production. They've got somebody in line.

They've got somebody in a slot for this particular day. Now you want to bump that person. You're going to pay for that. But you're also going to miss a ton of opportunities to reduce your costs, which means you're going to pay more than you actually should, because you're going to run out of time.

The second thing you're going to run into when you wait too long is you're going to rush design. Now this part just blows my mind because it's the one piece that you can control, whatever brands you are, whatever the name  brand X in packaging, manufacturing, packaging design, the one portion that you control.

Is the design. That's right. You get to control the design. You get to control the color. You get to control what it says, where your logo is, how big it is, all those different things. Now, if you're working with an outside agency, you still get to control that because you're partnering with them, et cetera.

When you hand over those final files to the manufacturer, it's out of your hands and I can hear it now. I mean, I think everybody right now is. I would never rush design. We're going to make up time somewhere else. We'll make up time on the backend. There's nowhere else to make up time manufacturing. I'm going to go down this list of like timeline, like what it really takes, right?

So manufacturing, it can take four to eight weeks prototyping and approvals can take three to four weeks. You're thinking, of course not prototypes will take super fast. I'm going to knock those out really quick and I'll get those numbers, approve them. The larger, the brand longer it takes. And especially now the way things are where people are working from home, people working back at all.

You know, let's say to make a prototype, it takes at fastest speed. It takes five days to make this prototype. Now they've got to ship it to you, or they got to ship multiple to your team at another two days. Then your team has to get it, your team out the test, it, your team has to make sure that everything looks right, but the materials feel the right way and you get it.

You've got to pass it along your team. If you've got to ship it to other people, that's more time. And all of a sudden you're at three, four weeks just to get. And if you've got changes, you can add more time. Now, a lot of times people want to order specialty light. Let's say that ultra matte paper that you love, the way it feels, it's a hundred percent cotton.

That feels like a t-shirt your manufacturer. They don't stock that. They don't just have that particular paper that you're looking for on the floor. So now. Contract manufacturer of that paper, they've got to order it. They might have to find like a knockoff version of it. Whatever has to happen to get you pricing, where needs to be, they've got to contact somebody else or your paper.

That's going to be more time depending where that paper's coming from. If it's coming from overseas, it's going to be locally. If you're getting it from four different factories or four different warehouses, because one manufacturer doesn't have enough of it for your order. There's all these little things that happen in packaging.

And each little thing adds time. Tons of it. You got to think about all the time that it takes to manufacture it, to ship it, to get the materials. There's so much time that happens. It's like insane. Now you've got to get your product fulfilled. Yeah. It's got to go to a DC distribution center.

You're working with a co-packer. If it's retail package, then it has to go to a centralized warehouse to be further distributed to all the different stores. So you got to add another three to four weeks. Now, if you're counting, we're probably at about four to five. And all of this is without designing a single thing, or you haven't even told the manufacturer what color your box is.

They're telling you, it's going to take, you know, four to five months already. So you have to make sure that you're not waiting too long. And really the way things are today with today's supply chain squeeze, you might have to add another month just for good measure. Now, like I said, if you're ordering 500 boxes that are stock boxes, you know, it's just a regular tuck box that the manufacturer has a dye for.

They've got, they stock some basic folding carton. They stock some core, get in whatever size, as long as that fits the machine that they need to run your order. It's going to be a lot faster if they're just hot stamping or just silk screening or just flexo printing, that's going to be a lot faster for those 500.

As long as you're not looking at specialty materials, but I know a lot of us are always looking for that special, unique trait. That's going to make our packaging stand out. That's going to give that consumer a little extra. So you got to think about how much time it's gonna take. Even on the fast side, you're looking at one to two months when all of a sudden done.

So since  you can't control that side of the package, What ends up happening is you squeeze design, right? Like you squeeze the crap out of it because that's the part that you can control. Graphic design, branding, messaging, copywriting, regulatory, who wants to squeeze regulatory?

Cause if they don't put their appropriate  terminology on the packaging or the appropriate verbiage on the packaging, doesn't matter how long it took. It'll get pulled off shelf. So you've got to make sure that all those things have enough time to be. All right. So I told you the horrible part of what happens with this mistake, right?

I told you what happened, the snowball effect that happens when you wait too long. So how do you avoid this? And don't take too long and it's like this, you know, that's as simple as it gets, but really when do you need to start talking about packaging is as soon as you start talking about needing packaging, right?

That means as soon as you start prototyping a product, as soon as you start prototyping a product, as soon as. Decide, you're going to launch a brand. That's going to sell t-shirts or underwear, whatever it is. That's when you need to talk about that,  don't wait till you're signing off on the final prototype of your product to start thinking about packaging really need to get started early.

Now, what that means is you can start designing. You can have a structural designer come in and help you with that. If you've got one on your team, that's great. Or if you've seen packaging like online you to try to duplicate the structure of that. That's great too, but you gotta start doing that first. Then you can start working with your design team, giving them a general idea of what it is that you're looking for, what you're trying to communicate what that story.

is you're trying to tell through the packaging you can start inviting packaging manufacturers into the conversation at that point. You know, you don't really have. Fully jelled idea, but you've got some pieces, bits and pieces here of what you're trying to do.  That's enough to get a manufacturer at the table to help figure things out with you.

And now if you're working with a good manufacturing partner I love working with IDP, direct their sponsor on the show. We've done some great programs together. You know, this is the way that they work too, the first thing you talk about is. But it doesn't matter how much the packaging costs, because if it's not within your timeline, it doesn't matter.

You're going to end up paying more. So start with the timeline first. What is your launch date back out of there? What kind of materials? What kind of production in time? What kind of prototyping timeline? You know, how many rounds do you typically expect? You know, usually it's two to four prototype rounds because we're fine tuning.

It just depends on what you're actually packaging include how long your team takes to review. If you've got a bigger team, it takes longer. If you're a smaller team if you're just slow, you're traveling account for that stuff. The date that you're really looking for here is your art's drop dead date, right?

What's the last day that you can actually hand over final files. You can't touch them again. That's it game over. You hand those files over in order to make your launch date. That's what you're looking for. Once you've got that. Now you subtract the date that you're having that conversation from the drop dead date.

And that's going to give you how much time you've. To carry this ball, that's going to give you how much time you've got to take control of this product. It might be two months. It might be two weeks. It might be six months who knows, but that is the time that everything has to be done before your files, leave your hands and get scheduled  for production.

 So like I said, if you want to avoid this disaster of a headache, because it is a disaster for everybody, don't wait until it's too late. Get started. As soon as you're thinking about product, you're thinking about a new activation, a new program, call it in it's time to start working on packaging.

If you're not sure where to start, you can find me on LinkedIn at Evelio Mattos, and I'm happy to direct you to someone that can help you. If you're looking for a structural designer, graphic designer, whatever it is, reach out, I'm happy. 

Now the biggest mistake. Number two, thinking that size doesn't matter, right?

Size makes up a huge portion of packaging. It makes a huge difference when it comes to packaging size might not matter in other parts of your life, but in packaging it's critical.  So the question I get with size. The size of what what am I really looking for besides the box has the product, what am I talking about? So that's a great question. And I like to start at the end and like to work backwards, same way that I figured out a timeline on a project, you start at the end, you work with it backwards.

So you have a good idea of where you're at. It's also how I figure out size. It's not always how we do it, but it's mostly how I do it.

So for as long as I've been doing packaging, this is the way that I do it. We're going to work from the end, backward . What is the end?

There are several there's several different ends, right? Either getting product on shelf. That's one is your product going on a shelf. What are the depth of. Yeah. What are the limitations for, shelf display? Is it refrigerated? How much shelf space do you get in the refrigerator?

You care about these things because you want to maximize those things. You want more product on shelf. The less time your product is off shelf. And if you've got, you know, three products on shelf because you sized it wrong and people take those three products who knows when that retail stock is going to get to refilling your particular product, who knows how many sales you'll miss to make sure that you're really thinking about these things.

This is typical for most mid tier products. Now, if you're talking about luxury products, this changes a little bit because  the packaging. It's run into this fun house mirror that squishes and stretches reality a little bit, because luxury is a completely different animal.

So from here you work your way backwards to transportation.  Where is that product going to end up? Like I said, is it in the refrigerator is on shelf. If it's, let's say it's an activation for a particular new product, , then is that going to be at a pop-up? 

At a global, pop-up it just a specific, pop-up like one location, 10 locations where around the world are these locations. If it's if it's for a influencer program you're doing then where does have to ship to you again globally in just one place that places, all these different points really matter.

So from here where that product ends up, you gotta work your way backwards. The product is going to get to shelf it's going to get to somebody. The step before that, when you're working backwards, what happens before that is if it's at retail, that product is sitting in backstock in the back of the store, in the back of the brand that backstock area, there's not a lot of space back there.

Space is at a premium when you're talking about retail stores. So you've got to figure out how to Tetris everything in that. So how much room do you have back there? What size carton? You know, it's a shelving. Do you have how big of a carton can you actually fit comfortably and be able to stock everything?

Or you want to think about that because your product, your packaging has got to fit inside of those master cartons, the shipping cartons that arrived at your store. You have to think about those sizes. You've got limitations. It's not just whatever you want. It's the way things work. So how are you moving the product?

You know, how's it gonna get there? Transportation. How are you moving products with packaging on pallets? How many of your products and a master carton can fit on a pallet,  there's a software out there it's called tops.

TLPs you get to tops analysis. And what tops does is it  basically Tetris is your product. If your product is two inches by three inches by five inches, it'll show you a million different ways to pack out a MasterCard and a million different ways of how that MasterCard and can fit on a pallet.

And it's going to show you if your if your box has a little bit of overhang if it doesn't have enough overhang, like all these little things matter.

Because the amount of space it takes up on a pallet may reduce how many pallets you can fit in a container. And you're moving these things.  If your master cartons hang over the pallet, you're more susceptible to damage.

 Because now when that pallet is moving around in a container, on a forklift, it can bang into things. Other products may bang into them. Those corners are something you've really got to watch out for. Again, it's something that's out of your control. So you got to make sure that you are controlling as much of it as possible.

If your MasterCard hangs over that pallet, then. You may not be able to fit as many pallets in the container. You've got to get more containers in at today's rates containers like 20 grand to ship it across the ocean. You know, just getting a container is expensive, so that's more money and it's not something that you want to hear.

So you've got to make sure that you get like a tops analysis on your pallet or at least understand and get that information from your manufacturer. Here's the pallet dementia. Here's the way that we're going to pack it. Here's how you're gonna store it. And here's the overall number of pallets we're going to get into a container.

All right. So how do you avoid the sizing nightmare? Again, start at the end and go backwards. You're going to get super tired of this. Start at the end and work your way backwards. The beginning of the project is really the least important. The end is the most important. So you got to work backwards from there.

Alright. So once that product is packed out, that's the end it's on shelf. So let's take a look at that pack itself. Just envision your product in this packaging. Is there too much? Headspace Headspace is the area between the product and the interior of the lid for the amount of space that's above the product.

Is it too? If you reduce the Headspace, can you fit more on a palette? Can you fit more on a shelf? You know, keep in mind that today consumers are super aware of sustainability.  They don't want product to be over-packaged, which sometimes is how it feels when there's too much head space.

So they're becoming used to the idea of a more condensed box. that's great for a brand because now you can actually do it on purpose for saving money and costs moving as quicker. If you're also delivering something because customers expect. Now, if you're not considering size all the way through to the final delivery, you're leaving money on the table.

A lot of it the last one of the biggest mistakes today is brands forgetting to consider the unboxing experience.

I hate when brands forget the unboxing experience, it drives me nuts. It's like you've spent all of this time, all this money, developing this product all this time, all this money, creating a store atmosphere, the uniforms for the staff, the color of the carpet, the way it smells. When you walk into this retailer, the website, the user expects.

What kind of a menu do you have? Is it a hamburger? Menus is a slide-out menu, all these different details. They've figured out to make your purchasing your buying experience. Amazing so that you buy more product and you don't forget that brand. You it's like you love it so much. Everything is so smooth.

Great, amazing. And really the reason you're going through all of that crap is to get the product. So that's the part that's the most important, not just the product being a quality product, but how do you get that product when you get it home? You're going to unbox something to reveal that product. And if you spent, I've said this a million times, have you spent three, $400 on a product and they just throw it in a box and it looks like a piece of crap.

You're going to feel that product is a piece of crap. It's not going to be worth three to $400. It's going to feel like a $10 product, it makes a huge difference. And if you spent all this time and money developing all these different user experience, And you forget the one final one again, what happens at the beginning?

Isn't as important as what happens at the end of your timeline of final delivery is getting it into your consumer's hands. And if they don't love that experience, then why have you even spent all the time to get there?  It drives me insane. I'm like, if you've ever opened a box and it's underwhelming, or you.

Why didn't they put art on this panel, right? Like, why didn't they, why am I opening this box? I've got a big blank panel with nothing on it. , they didn't consider the unboxing process. You know, like if there's a tear strip and it doesn't tear all the way now, it like drives me insane. They didn't think through it, they didn't prototype it.

They didn't test it. They didn't. Really do their due diligence on the entire unboxing experience. It's like the most critical part of the whole process. And if you don't focus on it, there's no reason that you even should have done anything before that particular point. You know, when those tear strips don't open, it drives me nuts.

You know, our, the lid and the base, are they too tight? Are they too hard to separate where you got to shove your nails in there and try to separate the boxes you've had these before it sucks, or like they have to show me that. Yeah, that's terrible. Or maybe it's the complete opposite where the base and the litter too loose.

And you pick up the base and, or you pick up the lid and the base slides out and everything falls out or you pick it up and it just kinda slips off. You don't want that feeling. If you ever have you ever put on a pair of socks that are like, the elastic is all stretched out and you pull them all the way up and they just sag, they come and just drop down to your ankle.

It's not a cool feeling. It's not nice. It doesn't look nice. It looks like you're wearing legwarmers, but they're not quite legwarmers. They're just like ugly socks. They're too big and too old. That's what this packaging feels like. When you grab that lid and you lift it and it just flops off because the fit isn't right.

They haven't considered the vacuum, the release time all these little details that make a huge difference. That's what it feels like. Floppy fish not cool. Or maybe the brand forgets to tell its complete story, to tell its story in the unboxing process. Like here's what that looks like. Let's say an e-commerce box.

It arrives at your door. You see it. It's just brown craft. No problem. People don't want people stealing. You know, they don't want to alert porch pirates. Hey, here's my amazing box and my perfect product. So brown box, no  problem. You walk over to it, you pick it up. Now that the tape, it could be water activated, reinforced printed with your.

What, What goes on the tape? What should go on that tape? You know, it could be a tagline maybe a photo and illustration of maybe an upcoming launch. I think Amazon just did a program for the new Transylvania monster movie cartoon where all their boxes or tape has like some type of messaging to redirect consumers to that show on prime or that movie .

So you get, that is great real estate for you, that tape you can't put branding color something that's going to communicate your brand. And that's the starting point for the consumer. Now if you get that right and you get this e-commerce box, it's brown, it's got tape that either does or doesn't have any printing on it.

Let's say it does. It's an amazing tape that you've developed. You've spent the time to design and manufacture and you've applied it to your pack and it looks perfect. Now the shipping. The ups, FedEx, whatever DHL whatever shipping label goes on there, let's say that now it's folded over goes over an edge is wrinkled has bubbles in it, not a big deal, unless you really are trying to communicate quality, right?

If you're fine with your shipping label, not being square and aligned on the box and kind of hangs over the edge, just peeled back. It's crooked goes over multiple plans. You're trying to communicate sloppy then you're good. But if you're trying to communicate a well put together brand, that's considered of all details because again, consumers are examining every part of your box, even though they're not doing it the way that I do under a microwave.

If stuff shows up and it's just not right. They're going to know it's not right. If things are crooked not considered , if your tape is wonky or it's too long on one side too short on one side, it doesn't quite close the box properly. These are all cues that they capture mentally as a failure.

This is, it just clicks in their head. All right. This was one check on this brand. They don't do that consciously.  It's if you went to a pizza place and the cheese had slid off your pizza, right? Yeah. You can grab it and slide it back on and eat it and it tastes great, but it's not a good feeling.

You register that this is an issue, same thing. Don't let your cheese let off your pizza. So for the labels, like a great thing to do is print, maybe two little corner brackets that show the person that's applying these labels where to apply it.

Or you can even do a complete rectangle. That's a size of the label and be a little bit smaller than the labeled. So you don't see it. Again, you're in control of all aspects of your packaging. Make sure that you do take control of it. Don't leave anything to chance.

  All of this goes into creating the romance, the beauty, and really into creating that desire and the consumer to get into that box and rip out whatever it was that they ordered. However many days ago you've got to re romance them. 

All right. So it's arrived on your stoop. It's got tape the labels. Perfect. Then how do you open it? Is there a test? What's the best way to go. Does it tear from left to right? Does it tear from right to left top to bottom? You know, I typically go left to right. just cause that's the way that we read.

But if you're in a different country and you read in a different direction, maybe you flip it and it goes the other way. Just what comes natural to the brand. What really speaks that the brands language when you go to a tear strip, does it say something on the tear strip? Does it reveals something underneath as it tears?

Does it say rip me open or something on the tear strip and then you tear it and underneath it, it reveals a message. That's another panel, right? You can say it can be like a two-step process from the tearing is one, the message on the tear strip is one. The reveal is to think of I don't know.

I think of Laffy taffy, like this candy when I was a kid, the outside of the rapper would have a joke and you open it up, pull up the candy and underneath the candy was the was the punchline, right? It's like these little things that happen. If you time them properly, they're memorable. You know, does it reveal something underneath as it tears?

Have you tested it? Does it tear all the way? Is it two? Is it comfortable? Is it too stiff? Does is the little tear tab, too small? Do your fingers have to like jam in there in order to grab it? Like all these things matter, make it seamless, make it frictionless. Now that you've taught it is the lid, you know, you have to open the lid.

Is there a message that's going to welcome the user into the box. Is there something underneath the lid when you open the box that catches your eye? Is there a color, a logo, a welcome message. Is there just an envelope stuck to the inside of that thing that has your receipts has the business card of the sales person that helped you so that they know who to call.

If there's an, if there's an issue, all these little things, again, it matters somebody opening this in their home. Somebody who's receiving this as a gift, you are in control of this entire experience. You've got to take control of it. Now how's the product. How's that product. When you open the box, you see the product immediately.

Do you is there a layered effect, if you think about your apple iPhone, when you opened the box, there's that four second drop between the base and the lid, that separation that takes four seconds. That's a lot of anticipation that happens there. Then when you, when the boss finally separates the product is the hero.

It's the only thing. There's not a lot of a border around the products. It's really. And the product has raised just enough that you just, you can pull that phone up with your index finger and thumb

the amount of time that goes into designing that box for that phone that they've been making for so long is insane. There are just an army of engineers that are fine tuning. The corner radius on the insert. That's going to release that phone. There are just as many designers that are looking at every panel on that box.

Where is your hand going to go? Is your thumb going to cover the logo when you remove that lid is the finish on there. Smooth enough that it's going to give you that four second release. Like all these things matter. It should matter to you. Like I said, how easy is it to get that product out of the box?

Apple, a great example. They've raised that phone up so that when you grab it with your fingers, it's not, you're grasping for it. You just grab it and it lifts easily. Same thing for your product. How do you get it out of the box? If you've ever had to flip over a box in order to get the product out, I can bet you nobody thought about unboxing.

Either they didn't consider it or they just. Yeah. They just didn't consider there's no, either they just didn't consider it. And they're leading that packaging decision to like their manufacturer. A lot of times brands that are starting out with they'll do is they'll say this is my product.

And then we'll talk to a packaging manufacturer and they'll go, yeah, here, can you package this up similar to a competitor. And then the manufacturer does what they're told. They knock it out. They're not in control of your brand. Don't hand over the keys to your brand to another couple. I never leave that consumer experience in the hands of somebody else, their goals.

Aren't your goals. That's why they're called their goals, not your goals.  

Take control of your brand and avoid making these mistakes. Let's recap real quick. What do we do? We've got start your patching faster, sooner. Bring on the right team. Started talking to manufacturers or talking to designers at the very beginning of. Idea, whatever it is that you're doing, try to avoid rushing the design portion of this because that's, what's going to happen.

Number two size really matters. Make sure that you are considering the end and working our way backwards. How's your product gonna fit on a pallet? Ask that question. That's a great question to ask.

Make sure that you ask it every be manufacturer of your logistics team, because they're going to tell you if you've got much. If you've got too much overhang, you've got not enough overhang, ask them, how do you fix it? If there's too much, do you resize your pack? Do you have to reshuffle the way that you pack them out in MasterCard?

Do you have to reshuffle the orientation of your MasterCard ins on a pallet in order to get them to. No. These are things that are really important to make sure that you're asking these questions. And then number three, the last one that we did was really consider it the unboxing process. Again, start at the end.

When somebody receives this boss, what are they going to feel about your brand? Take everything that you've designed, everything that you've built before that experience and throw it in the trashcan, the store, the staff, the website, the partnerships, the cool marketing, the great influencers, all that stuff.

Take that and throw it in the trashcan. Don't even think about it. Just think about what that experience is going to be and walk through an entire experience like this is the first time you're seeing that packaging and have other people go through that packaging. 

 There's focus groups that help you go through there. You're a boxing. I'm not a big fan of focus groups actually hate focus groups with the focus groups that I do really like working with our focus groups of differently abled people. Yeah. Older people that may have arthritis. You may have people that have dexterity issues go through the same process with them because they're just as valuable a client as anybody else to make sure that your packaging can be opened by a lot of people.

Sometimes those tear strips, if the tab is too small, an older person may have a hard time just grasping it. So what they'll do is they'll go grab the scissors and we'll cut through and ruin your experience. So make sure that you're thinking about everybody that is going to come in contact with your pack and designed for them.

 Include them in the conversation because you know, you don't design for somebody without their input. Make sure that you're bringing in enough people to give you feedback. Now, this is all about for today. If you've seen other mistakes that brands make, please find me on LinkedIn post comment.

You can find me on Instagram, Twitter. Let me know. Maybe we'll get into some of that in detail on future episodes. I'll make sure to add it to.

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