Packaging: traveling between science and art

In the history of mankind, there has been "packaging" since there was commercial activity. In early human commercial activities, merchants used various symbols, patterns, words, and colors as symbols of goods and shop numbers. With the development of production and commodity economy, packaging design has become an indispensable and important factor in commercial circulation.

For modern people living in the city, an assortment of product packaging is a daily necessity. Get up early in the morning and open the tubular toothpaste from us and start to enter the packaging world. Packaging design affects people's quality of life. Judging from the appearance, we can obtain visual recognition and pleasure from the artistic shape, color, and decorative graphics of the packaging. Therefore, the scientific factors such as materials, process technology, and the rationality of the human body as well as the convenience and safety in the use of the packaging design cannot be ignored. In this sense, packaging design shows the artistic spirit of human nature. At the same time, the development of packaging design cannot be separated from the influence of science and technology.

First, look at its artistic and scientific nature from the history of packaging development

In the long process of human civilization, with the improvement of productivity and the improvement of people’s lifestyle, every scientific and technological invention will greatly influence and promote the function and form of packaging. From the development and evolution of packaging, we can clearly see the progress of human civilization.

The ancient working people used wisdom and hard work to create a variety of beautifully shaped packaging containers. In the primitive society, human beings knew little about nature and had extremely low productivity. In their relatively stable living environment, humans used the primary production techniques and raw packaging materials such as leaves, bark, bamboo, fruit shells, and animals. Intestines, bladders, and baskets made of straw, branches, bamboo branches, etc., can be easily processed. The birth of pottery created a glorious page in the history of human packaging. Since then, mankind has begun a purposeful and intentional packaging creation. Today, when we saw painted pottery 6,000 years ago, whether it is a pattern or a sculpt, it impressed modern designers. And these original packaging materials and creative ideas still continue to enrich our design ideas.

When the productivity has developed to a certain level, with the division of labor in society and the surplus of products, commercial activities will naturally occur. European commercial civilization began on the Mediterranean coast and spread along with the development of maritime transport. Egypt's glass containers and production process quickly spread to the European continent. Egypt also had early commodity labels on wine jars and pots, or bolts or Pasting the written text label indicating the content to indicate the category, this may be the earliest origin of wine packaging.

Papermaking is one of the four major inventions in ancient China. The emergence of paper gradually replaced the previously expensive packaging materials such as rayon and brocade. In the "Han Zhao Queen's Biography", it is useful to record the use of Chinese traditional medicine. Since then, paper has been used to package food, medicine, textiles, cosmetics, dyes, gunpowder, salt and other items. People continue to make improvements in paper making, such as adding dyes to make red packaging paper that symbolizes auspiciousness and celebration; together with wax, they are made of wrappers that are oil- and moisture-proof.

In the 19th century, papermaking technology was greatly developed, making it possible to replicate in a short period of time. The earliest paper machine was a papermaker in London, England, who bought a patent from the French in 1803, and asked experts and technicians to endeavor. Research and spending a lot of money to be able to create a successful, to 1860, there have been an annual output of paper can reach 1,000 tons / Taiwan high-speed machine. The raw materials used for modern wood pulp production started from the middle of the 19th century. Prior to that, the raw materials were flax, kapok, etc., which were completed through steps such as cooking, smashing, and pulping.

With the invention of papermaking, as early as the Eastern Han Dynasty, there was an early form of printing - rubbing. The development of printing began with the invention of engraving. During the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the technique of engraving and printing was quite superb. By the Song Dynasty, engravings in our country reached a climax, and many places formed large-scale engraving centers. Due to the development of commerce, the world’s oldest banknote, the Jiaozi, was engraved on the wooden engraving. Printing is naturally applied to the packaging design. For example, the printing of business names, slogans, and auspicious designs on wrapping paper is quite common. During the Northern Song Dynasty, the wrapping paper of the Liujia Needle Shop in Jinan, Shandong Province was printed on a four-inch square with a copperplate print. In the middle was a rabbit's graphic mark. The top part of it was written with the words “The White Rabbit in front of the door” and the lower half had the advertising phrase: “Buy on Such as steel, Kung Fu fine needles, do not change the use of the house, visitors to the dealer, do not have to add "and other words. The graphics are clear and the text is concise and easy to remember. It already has the basic functions of modern packaging.

Due to trade and war, especially the Crusades, China's printing technology was spread to Europe. In 1243 AD, there appeared engraving printing in Europe. Around 1450, the German Gutenberg started using live type prints. Printing soon spread across Europe and was widely used. As printing provides rich expression, the communication of goods becomes more free and direct. The information transmission function on the packaging replaced the previous professional sales staff and made the popularity of the retail industry possible.

Today, the proportion of packaging as an industry in the national economy is also increasing year by year. The packaging industry has developed into a tertiary industry that integrates packaging materials, packaging machinery, packaging production and packaging design in all industrialized countries. The pursuit of aesthetics is human. One of the most basic psychological features is that in today's highly competitive market, companies often struggle with sales planning, pursuing visual stimuli, and often neglecting the most basic aesthetics of product images. The beauty of packaging, in addition to embodying aesthetic functions, is more important to service for product sales. This is the essence of packaging design.

Second, the structure of the packaging to see its artistic and scientific

Practical packaging should not only look beautiful but also be functionally convenient. The former is a matter of art, and the latter is a matter of science. It is inconvenient to use only when it is beautiful, or it only meets practical needs, and ignores people's pursuit of psychological beauty. Such packaging does not have excellent packaging requirements and loses good sales force in the market.

The shape of the packaging container and the characteristics of the product itself should be harmonious and unified. The graceful curves and rhythmic rhythm of women's products should be expressed. The linear, geometric, and fortitude of the male products should be visual characteristics. Children's products should be lovely and lively. modeling. At the same time, when the goods are held in the hands of consumers, their sense of touch will also convey certain emotions and emotional characteristics. The harmony and unity of texture and shape constitute a perfect visual aesthetic. The important purpose of packaging is to make people easy to use. Therefore, it must be taken into account that the coordination of the relationship between the hands or other body parts and the package styling during use is reflected in the design criteria. For example, the scale of the hand is relatively fixed. How the package shape makes the hand to take, open, use, and dump is convenient and labor-saving, and becomes the basis for dimensional grasping in the package design. Some containers are designed with grooves on the packaging container according to the position of the hand-carried goods, or the use of frosted or granular textures are all for the convenience of gripping and opening of the hand. There is a small bottle, designed with a slightly curved flat shape. Its shape is combined with the human body structure, and is very suitable for carrying in the back pocket. Therefore, it is particularly welcomed by travelers and manual workers.

The artistic expression of packaging is merely a face in which the external form appeals to vision. The shape, color, material, and craftsmanship of this face, as well as the rational relationship between human beings, depend on science and technology. The level is another hidden face that is invisible on the surface.

With the advancement of human civilization, unprecedented new technologies emerged in the field of natural sciences, and new challenges were also raised for packaging design. How to protect and preserve these products, how to get them safely into circulation, and to succeed in sales. These new topics have promoted the constant updating and progress of packaging structures, materials, and visual communication, so as to adapt to the needs of new products and times.

Conclusion

To sum up, the unique human commercial packaging behavior has the dual purposes and attributes of pursuing aesthetics, protecting the quality of goods, and facilitating the scientific nature of life from the very beginning. In the process of human civilization, these two attributes have been played and developed in various ways under different cultural conditions and different cultural environments according to the pursuit of different people. As a result of human cognition of the laws of science, mankind is actively adjusting to its own sustainable development. As a commercial packaging designer, while trying to temper his artistic feelings, he must not neglect the research and exploration of packaging science. The perfect combination of art and science is the ideal direction for packaging design.

Source: PACK.CN