On today’s show, we dive into the world of product package design. And although the overall concepts of design carry through all mediums, product design does have its unique challenges. To help us explore this more, I’ve asked Paul Hebron, Senior Creative of Product Development and Packaging Design to join us. Paul has a ton of experience in this area, and I was just fascinated with what he shared with me on the show. From design to placement, to labeling. All great stuff. So let’s get into product design and chat with my friend Paul.
We chatted about:
* What should your first step be when thinking about your product package design
* Some of the mistakes people make when going through the process of package design
* The challenges in creating package design for virtual products vs. physical products
* Tips on how to design for both virtual and physical products
* Any products that are more challenging to design packaging for compared to others
* What has been Paul’s favorite project (hint: it has something to do with Star Wars)
Thanks to Our Podcast Sponsor: Bluehost
Transcript
You can also download a pdf of the full transcript here: WordPress eCommerce Show Episode 92 July 19 2017
Bob Dunn: Hey everyone, Bob Dunn here, known as BobWP on the the web. On today’s show we are going to dive into the world of product package design. And although design concepts carry through all mediums, product design does have its unique challenges. To help us explore this more, I’ve asked Paul Hebron, at Senior Creative of Product Development and Packaging Design to join us. Paul Hebron has a ton of experience in this area, and I was fascinated with what he shared with me on the show. From design to placement, to labeling—all great stuff. So let’s get into product design and chat with my friend Paul.
Hey, Paul. Welcome to the show.
Paul Hebron: Thanks, Bob. Thanks for letting me be a part of this.
Bob: Yeah. I’m really excited. I know that was a very long title I gave you. I admit I pulled it from LinkedIn, we all have our LinkedIn titles, but why don’t you tell our listeners a little bit more about yourself, and what you’re involved with, and what you’ve done as far as product design?
Paul: Okay, sure. My LinkedIn titles can be a little bit ambiguous, at most, because we always like to narrow the focus on them. I call myself a creative something. My career started as a graphic designer, and I say graphic design primarily in print, and then I went to motion graphics, animation. Then the tools changed. This is back in the day when Macromedia Director was one of the things that you had to learn, and that has changed. In the digital world, tools are always changing. Likewise, let’s see, I’ve been an information architect, visual designer. Oh God, how I hated the term “desktop publisher.”
Bob: Oh yeah.
Paul: Without going through the titles, I’ve worked as an art director. I’ve designed products, I’ve designed product packaging. I had my own design studio in Los Angeles, so in that case, I was everything from the janitor, to the creative director, to the production guy. I’ve had a career where I’ve worked on titles for Paramount, Warner Brothers, Fox, primarily packaging. I noticed that everything kept coming back to packaging. Then, when I moved to Seattle in 2003, I went to work for Wizards of the Coast, a subsidiary of Hasbro.
While I was there, I worked on Star Wars miniatures. I worked on some of the D20 modern publications, the books. I worked on a girl’s game called Star Sisters. I worked on a trading card game called Kids Next Door.
