My love for packaging started way back, at the age of 10 years old, at St Andrews Prep School in Woking.
I was a boarder, which meant I had plenty of time to fill at the weekend, once I’d exhausted the building of dens and the writing of letters home.
With time to fill, we got creative.
These days, my boys barely possess a pen, but back then there was a whole lot of stationery to cart around, from pens, pencils and rubbers through to geometry sets and ink cartridges.
What to cart them around in; that was the question.
Individuality can be hard to come by in an all-boys school, where you all dress the same, so every chance we got, we clamoured to show off our uniqueness.
And the design of our stationery storage was one such area where we could display our originality.
Most boys went for a simple shoebox as the basis, and from that foundation, all manner of cardboard architecture and artistry was used, with draws, flaps, partitions and the odd secret compartment too.
Once the design was complete, it was onto the branding, hand writing letters to companies and begging for stickers to festoon our personalised pencil boxes.
After the stickers starting rolling in, it soon became clear who was destined for creative roles, with some boxes standing head and shoulders above others.
And I’m proud to say that mine was ‘one to beat’, a complex inner design, adorned with a eclectic mix of stickers, from Billy Graham to Michelin; from Corona to Esso and AP Lockheed.
I knew then what I know now – what’s inside the box is important, but the first interaction and experience someone has with a product is typically the packaging.
Get it right, like Apple and some of the other tech giants, and you deliver a pleasurable unboxing experience that solidifies their purchase decision.
Get it wrong, and you can undo trust and degrade brand rather quickly.
If you want to get it right, hit reply and I’ll happily spend some time sharing a few ideas with you.
Stay happy, healthy and active!
