Successful custom mylar bag designs can help sell your products... and unsuccessful packaging can help sabotage your products.

1. Overcrowding your design
There is a common instinct people have when designing packaging: to add to it. Add more colors, add more effects, add more text, and more personality.

This instinct can backfire on you.

A cluttered mylar bag design will definitely not have the premium appeal of a clean design that shows the product clearly; rather, it will be confusing because the consumer's eyes will have no place to focus on. - Source: Brandmydispo

A clean design always wins.

● Use a maximum of 1-2 font types
● Keep the color palette limited and intentional
● Use plenty of negative space

If everything is important, then nothing is important.

2. Not Paying Attention to Readability
If the design on your packaging cannot be read, then it is not packaging so much as decoration.

When consumers are deciding whether to purchase a product, time is of the essence - if they do not immediately identify the product name, its flavor, or other key information, they will not wait to be able to read it later on; they will simply walk away because they have lost any interest in the product.

Some common font mistakes:

● Choosing an artistic font that cannot easily be deciphered
● Using low contrasting type and background colors e.g. light text on light backgrounds
● Trying to fit too much text into a very small amount of space

Think about it this way... if someone cannot read the text from three feet away, the design has failed.

3. Not Considering the Product Itself When Designing
Although the bag is not the product, it is simply a container for the product, many designers forget to address the actual product’s attributes when developing their packaging design.

Questions designers may forget to ask themselves include:

● Should the product be housed in a bag with a window, giving the consumer the chance to see the product within the bag?
● Does the design reflect the attributes of the product being packaged?

When trying to create a high-end edible product, a cute, cartoonish style must be avoided;

Conversely, the opposite would apply to creating a fun, exciting snack in sterile packaging - this package design would give the consumer zero excitement about the product.Your design should correlate with your product.

4. Poor Color Selection
Colors do not solely have an aesthetic value; they also possess psychological, branding and shelf impact implications.

Incorrect color selections can:

- Make your product appear inexpensive
- Decrease shelf visibility
- Cause printing problems (especially with metallic and/or matte).

Some color selection issues include:

- Too many clashing colors
- Colors blending into the background
- Not considering how the colors print on a shiny mylar.

All colors behave differently on packaging than they do on screen; that deep black may not be as deep once printed.

5. Not Accounting for Print & Material Restrictions
Things that may look perfect on-screen can look totally different in production.

Mylar reflects light, and when printing on it, the ink will react differently than when printing on paper; this affects all finishing processes.

These are examples of common mistakes;

- Expecting ultra-fine detail to print true to screen,
- Ignoring the way metallic layers alter your color,
- Not designing with bleed, margins or safety zones.

Logos are frequently cut off, texts shift and color shifts.

That's costly!

6. Weak (or Non-existent) Branding
Some bags look beautiful, yet are not presenting themselves as a brand.

If a customer remembers your bag design but does not know who made it, you have missed your target.

Common branding issues include:

- Too small or hidden logo
- Inconsistent branding across products
- No distinctive product hierarchy.

These are the three things your bag should answer:

- What is this?
- Who made it?
- Why should I care?If a product doesn't have any of these elements incorporated into its design and packaging then it's likely there for looks and not use.

7. Non Compliance and Missing Information
One small design error can lead you to a larger business issue.

Depending on your product will determine the required information you should provide on your packaging.

Some of the required information may include:

- A warning label
- An ingredient list
- Legal symbols
- A batch number or compliance info.

Some common design errors when including required information on your product packaging are as follow:

- Not using an appropriate text size
- Not following placement rules
- Hiding compliance elements.

Regulations don't care about how aesthetically pleasing a design is - The designer needs to design around regulatory requirements, not ignore them.

8. No Design Hierarchy

A well designed package communicates a story in order.

A poorly designed package communicates too much information all at once.

Examples of a strong design hierarchy for a product packaging package include but are not limited to showing the following in order:

- The brand name
- The product type
- The flavour or variant
- Any supporting information.

If the product flavour is featured bigger than the brand name, or the brand logo is buried in the design then you are giving the customer too much work. The likelihood is that they will not do the work.

9. Overuse of Trends in a Design

Trendy design is appealing, for example, the use of a hologram for the entire package, a messy looking dripping font, a very loud gradient, or a very retro style design.

Trendy designs have a limited shelflife because:

- Trends are outdated quickly
- Many designers copy from other designers
- Customers will forget your product.

Trendy designs are great as means but need to be combined with more timeless design elements to add lasting value to a package.

10. No Prototype

Not using a prototype may be one of your biggest waste of money.

To develop a design without a prototype is like to build a home without taking physical measurements to see that those measurements line up with the blueprint.

Below are a few of the things that can go wrong with a new package design.

- The wrong shades of colors were selected
- The type is too small
- The layout is too crowded
- The finish of the package does not meet your expectations.

Testing should be done before making any production order.

Final Note

Good custom mylar bag designs should not only look good; but also perform as designed.

An effective package design will do the following:

- It should draw the customer's eye.
- It should communicate clearly and quickly.
- It should build a trust relationship with the customer in seconds.
- It should be perceived to have been designed purposely.

A poorly-designed package will do just the opposite, and it will silently kill your products' conversion rates and you may not even realize it until it is too late.

If you consider custom mylar packaging design as an investment, you should be looking for clear, intentional, and strategic packages - not just cool.