Chapter 7: The Triangular Designers’ Space: Methodical Approach to Balance Brand Typicality and Novelty

This example shows the power of design where the choice of specific forms, colours and materials evokes a certain feeling and influences the decisions of consumers. Besides attracting attention, recognisability is one of the most important aspects for brands to distinguish themselves from competitors [1]. However, there are so many competitors around that it might sound impossible to be recognisable as a brand. So the question is, how can brands become visible between other (screaming) initiatives (advertisements, shops, logos, products etc.) that are developed to attract attention to a store environment? In the authors' view, the answer lies in value creation, but the definition of this term can be approached from different perspectives. In this chapter, we will focus on gaining insight in value creation especially from a designer perspective. Questions that will lead our investigation, are the following: How can we balance all design features (such as form, colour, materials and so on) into a design that perfectly balances the explicit characteristics, to create a more meaningful experience that will be perceived as more valuable by consumers? And, how novel can we make those designs if they belong to certain brands? To answer these questions, we will focus on the fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) domain: brand extensions of packaging design. Our main research question for this chapter thus is: How innovative can a new packaging be, compared to previous variants, in order to still accomplish the desired acceptance?