Packaging

I believe packaging is very important when it comes to choosing a product because it is how the company grabs your attention. When you are looking at a shelf in a grocery store there are hundreds of options to choose from. How do you choose? I read a study once that said your eyes only pick up 5 to 7 objects at a time. So among all those objects, which one will grab your attention? The article Isn't it Iconic, brought up a lot of solid points that effective packaging designs have. I believe the most important is simple color contrast. You don't need to have seven different colors on your product, but just two or three solid or vibrant colors that contrast against each other. Whenever I am in the store, the most vibrant object usually stand out to me. One example I can think of is a rather new product, Stride gum. I usually buy Orbit gum myself, but one day I came across the Stride package, and I decided to buy that instead. To me, it has a much more visually appealing package than Orbit gum because it has a dark blue/green package with a cursive Stride on the front in white letters. It really helps this gum stand out because of the contrast it uses. I still buy Orbit gum because I prefer the taste, but I wish that it had a similar casing to Stride gum.
Other products that have visually appealing packages were be objects like Axe and Tag body spray/deodorant because the stick with two main colors, usually black and another vibrant color that quickly grab your attention. Other products such as Monster drinks and Gatorades also do an effective job of bringing your focus to that particular product.
When it comes to the usability of the package, I have never really had a major issue with poor packaging designs. Most designs are pretty simple to open, except of course prescription/over the counter medicines that have the lock twisty cap that you must squeeze first to open. But that obviously is because of safety issues, so that little children don't accidentally take that medicine. The only real problem I have had with packaging deals with the hard clear plastic packages the protect many technological products. They are the biggest pain in the neck to open because you can't do it without some type of sharp of object. And once you do get it open a little bit, you have to make sure you don't cut yourself with the plastic. That packaging design is the only real complaint I would have against usability.