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EVENSON DESIGN GROUP
Sustainable design orconscientious living.
Nine Design Strategies
To Ensure Your Sustainable Brand and PackagingInspires Sustainable Profts.
 
EVENSON DESIGN GROUP
4445 Overland Avenue Culver City, CA 90230
310 204 1995
f 
310 204 4879
www.evensondesign.com
NINE DESIGN StRatEGIES
2
Nine Design Strategies To Ensure Your Sustainable Brand and PackagingInspires Sustainable Profts.
As our economy gradually rebounds rom its recent tailspin, executives and entrepreneurs everywhere areawakening to the need or new, more enduring business models that successully promote a “triple bottomline”, balancing traditional corporate reporting that takes into account ecological and social perormancein addition to nancial perormance. But with new dedication to change, these concerns have truly becomeurgent, top-o-mind priorities or proessionals rom every sector, at every level o the corporate hierarchy.Nowhere is this urgency being more deeply elt than across the struggling retail and consumer goods industries.The terms “complete lie-cycle analysis” and “cradle-to-cradle” design– once relatively esoteric concepts ora passionate cadre o environmental innovators– have now captured the imagination o product developmentand packaging design mainstream. As a team o designers and marketing strategists who have long embracedthese principles, we at EDG couldn’t be more thrilled. Yet we are also a bit concerned. Do these terms representa true shit in thinking among the corporate mainstream? More importantly, in this topsy-turvy economy, willcompanies that authentically seek to employ these strategies be able to generate protable business results?Will they have the business acumen, courage, and marketing savvy needed to translate these idyllic principlesinto sustainable real-world results?As we survey the current corporate landscape, we are guardedly optimistic. We see scarcity-minded executivesocusing on sustainability almost exclusively through the lens o material cost/waste-reduction, overlookingabulous new opportunities or innovation. We see marketing budgets being impulsively slashed, with existingmonies allocated in ways that unwittingly minimize the ROI potential or precious advertising dollars. Morethan we’d like to admit, we see the distribution o promising, environmentally oriented products packaged inways that demonstrate little insight into the psychology o the targeted consumer groups, as short-cutting theimmense potential to attract new customers into the environmental consciousness old. However, we also seean unprecedented collective opportunity to transorm the consumer goods markets through innovative designstrategies and psychologically sophisticated communications.We eel that the time has come to change the conversation rom one o scarcity, to one o inspiration andinsight. As one modest branding and design rm in a sea o companies seeking to sustain– and even prosper– ina struggling global economy, we are indeed bold enough to believe that we truly can make a dierence. Thepresent may be uncertain, but wisdom shows that the uture is or those with the courage to innovate duringtimes o uncertainty, and the generosity to reely share their insights with those who can benet rom themmost. It is in this spirit that this paper was written. Ater more than three decades o designing brands thatlast, we have discovered a variety o innovative design strategies that are remarkably eective or convertingstrangers into happy, loyal customers through inspired product and packaging design.
 
EVENSON DESIGN GROUP
4445 Overland Avenue Culver City, CA 90230
310 204 1995
f 
310 204 4879
www.evensondesign.com
NINE DESIGN StRatEGIES
3
#1 FEElINGS = PROFItS (alwayS BRaND FOR EmOtIONal ImPact!)
Logic is great or mathematicians, but emotion is what sells. Because o the pressing need to inorm consumersabout the sustainable aspects o packaging, many sustainable packaging designs overemphasize inormation atthe expense o compelling, emotionally engaging aesthetics. Studies in the psychology o consumer purchasingbehaviors have consistently shown that the vast majority– up to 85% o consumer goods sales occur on impulsealone, with nearly two thirds o all purchasing decisions being made right at the point o sale!
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Consumers arehighly sensitive, emotionally driven beings with an unending desire to experience joy, warmth, and excitement.Smart product marketers embrace this act and invest in their product and packaging design to tap into theseconsumer attributes.So how, exactly, does one design emotionality into their packaging? This is where truly talented branding anddesign proessionals earn their keep. Emotional branding thrives on simplicity, authenticity and a passion orevocative details. The human brain is an incredibly sophisticated and sensitive organ, capable o decoding themost subtle visual cues or emotional tone and resonance. Great designers are able to distill the soul essenceo your brand and authentically express it through designs that resonate powerully and immediately with theemotional core o your target customers. The mind-arresting gestalt o such creative visual designs may seemmysterious and magical, but the nancial payo or those who employ them is tangible and immediate.For evidence, look no urther than Apple. Due largely to a simple, superb visual design strategy, Apple hascreated a brand that has become synonymous with the eelings o inspiration, innovation and creativity inmillions. Online brand zealots build virtual shrines to Apple products past and present, and devoted customersdo not hesitate to stand in line or hours to pay a premium or newly released apple products! Only emotionalbranding (combined with quality product design) could accomplish such irrationally positive business results.But Apple is just one example o many. From the “Think Small” VW Beetle o the 60’s to a new generationo brands, including Amazon.com, eBay, and Starbucks, emotionally evocative branding has transormedthe commercial landscape o our country over the past ve decades. The big question or us today is this:Are we– the aspiring leaders o a new sustainable economy– ready to apply this same wisdom to brandingenvironmentally sound products that sell to the mainstream? Environmental consciousness will gain mainstreamtraction only when a critical number o consumers start eeling emotionally compelled towards environmentallyriendly products and services, and not a minute sooner. Make emotionally evocative and appealing aestheticchoices your primary design goal, and watch your odds o becoming your customer’s next impulse buy improveexponentially over the competition.
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