Abstract: Modern packaging design has a strong commercial color, but a good design should also have a higher socially recognized cultural and artistic quality. It should be an organic integration of sales function and artistic beauty. This article through the analysis of the commercial design and cultural and artistic aspects of packaging design, discusses the trend of modern packaging design, and seek the combination of the two to achieve the harmony and unity of the two.

Keywords: Commodity Culture Artistic Inheritance Combination

Just as people can not leave clothes, goods can not be separated from packaging. Today, packaging design is not just about adding a “pretty coat” to a product. It also acts as a commodity salesman in the market, affecting the sales performance of the product and the brand image of the company.

First, modern packaging design is highly commercialized

Packaging design is a combination of goods, science, art, information, etc. It is not only restricted by the structure of the structure, production materials, printing processes, etc., but also consider the protection of goods, but also consider whether it is easy to transport , storage, display, whether it is conducive to sales, consumer convenience and a series of issues. It is actually a process of interaction with customers. As a carrier of products, the creation of packaging design is not a single design of art or design, but a composite discipline based on marketing, consumer psychology, material technology, three-dimensional composition and planar composition. With the continuous development of economic and trade, consumers in addition to the quality of their own products to enhance the quality of the packaging to give people a visual impression, but also more about whether there is an impulse to buy, so the role of packaging design to enhance the value of goods is undoubtly. “A good design can evoke an implicit desire for consumption and make it explicit. Or, design finds consumption needs and creates consumer needs.” It serves products and markets and respects science. To meet the needs of consumers and accept their inspections. As a designer, in addition to constant self-requirements and promotion, consumer demand and market trends must not be taken lightly, we must always pay attention to the changes in the market, changes in consumer fashion, changes in material technology and changes in product technology to The new space brought by packaging design. Only by continuously improving the level of design and understanding consumer behavior in depth can we have room for survival. So good packaging design is the best link with the market. Do not understand the customer, do not understand the market, do not have the right to design and speak. A product package from the design of the program to the printed product, and finally put on the market, the scientific design, customer ideas and opinions, printing processes and materials, processing costs, market sales display effect, consumer appreciation and acceptance level, etc. Turning off problems will ultimately affect economic efficiency. Therefore, the designer needs to deeply understand the positioning of the product, so that the design work is incorporated into the overall planning of product marketing, and the audience level, requirements, preferences, etc., are thoroughly investigated. Therefore, the commercial nature of packaging design is to obtain market recognition and create real value for customers. In this process, the design works often have a strong commodity color.

Second, modern packaging design should also have high cultural and artistic

In addition to adapting to the needs of marketization, a good design work has to be commercialized and recognized by the consumer. It must be more consistent with corporate culture and national culture, so that it can be elevated to a cultural expression: regional, humanistic. , Folklore... The difference is the way in which vision is the expression. The famous cultural anthropologist Marin Lovsky pointed out that "in human social life, the needs of all living organisms have been transformed into cultural needs." Modern packaging design is based on culture and life-based. Modern-oriented design disciplines. Therefore, both in theory and in practice, we should treat packaging design as a form of culture: In modern society, the study of design theory is not only an in-depth analysis of a discipline, but should be more Interdisciplinary view of disciplines. Looking at packaging design activities as a cultural phenomenon is not only a matter of simple physical function, it is not only the consumer who consumes the materials, but also the deeper level of things. It is the designer's responsibility.

China has a long history. The wisdom of the Chinese nation for thousands of years has crystallized the unique artistic spirit of the Chinese culture. Traditional culture and art are extensive and profound. The inheritance of traditional culture is necessary and inevitable. Numerous traditional patterns and ethnic cultural stories are both the source of design and the specific cultural background of the design restricted by the region. This cultural background has a deep cultural structure, and it retains the things that a nation has shared. Every nation in the world, due to the constraints of different natural conditions and social conditions, has formed different language, habits, morality, thinking, values, and aesthetic concepts from other ethnic groups. Different cultures and concepts created by different nationalities and different environments are directly or indirectly manifested in their own design activities and products. Chinese traditional art advocates spiritual pursuit and creates a situation outside the border; it proposes “harmony between man and nature” and “beyond the image”; advocating simpleness and abandoning glitz; advocating thick and shallow and discarding superficiality. Reflected in traditional graphics, the emphasis is on "implicit, concise," heavy spirits, on the spirit, is a unique method of intentional modeling of the East, this modeling method is prominent in the symbolic and complete. The so-called symbol, that is, the use of the same or similar forms of things, sustenance of specific meaning, constitute a graphic, the pursuit of an empty realm. Such as landscape painting is by no means an ordinary landscape painting, but to draw a “chest breathe”; painting bamboo is an expression of people’s imaginary and breezy festivals; painting lotuses is a manifestation of “sludgelessness”. This allegorical conception penetrates ideas into artistic forms through symbolic techniques. If a cat plays with a flying butterfly, it uses the “figure of a cat” to “harmonize it” to express the wish of the elderly for longevity; the crane and deer gather under the banyan tree to symbolize the “six contract spring”. This kind of use of metaphor, bixing, and use of idioms is a unique expression of Chinese culture. In addition, the traditional graphics are also very complete. For example, Chinese paintings are based on a large number of realistic scenes. They include banquets, dances, music, hunting, battles, and farming, harvesting, smelting, salt cooking, and other production scenes. Scattered composition breaks the concept of time and space. Many folk figures also reflect this feature, fully demonstrating that people admire the perfect shape concept. Like the human limbs, both the front and the side are completely drawn, and the two eyes on the side are also shown in full; the four legs of the animal appear on the screen in general, and the side of the body is accompanied by a positive head; The shape of the plant utilizes the profile of the melons to see through the plant's stamens and kernels, reflecting the state of life of the fruits. This styling method is an extension of Chinese philosophy. Confucianism promotes the "Golden Mean Way." The yong, often also, refers to the coordination, balance and completeness of man and nature, man and man. This philosophical theory is fully reflected in the integrity of the folk graphic, and the civil complete figure also expresses the people's pursuit and longing for a better life.

This kind of intentional modelling concept has a far-reaching guiding significance for expressing the cultural and artistic nature of packaging design, enabling designers to absorb nutrition from the tradition and comprehend the spiritual connotation of traditional graphics. Specifically, it can be analyzed and applied from three aspects: form, meaning, and divine.

1) Form, that is, drawing its modeling methods from Chinese traditional graphics, such as homophony, pursuing the completeness, dynamics, and perspective of the figures, and then transforming, refining, and applying some elements in the traditional modeling with modern aesthetic concepts. , making it rich in the characteristics of the times. In 2008, Beijing’s bid to host the Olympics did not directly borrow from the traditional model. Instead, it used the unique “like and dislike” freehand brushwork of Chinese art to deliver the two images “Chinese knot” and “athlete”. Not only reflects China's unique style, but also won the world's recognition.

2) The meaning mainly refers to the symbol. Behind traditional Chinese graphics, there are often more and more auspicious symbols. Graphical symbols are simply ways in which intrinsic meaning is expressed, and are externalizations of intrinsic meaning. For example, the logo of China Unicom Company adopts the shape of a “disk length”, one of the “eight auspices” of the eight treasures of Buddhism, and the meaning of “long history, continuous life, and mutual complementarity” is used to indicate that Unicom’s communication business is free. Exhaustive, long time. The four squares in this sculpt are symbolic of all directions and all things are good; six circles symbolize the roads and roads, and are smooth everywhere; and the ten spaces in the figure are full of perfection and perfection. This kind of auspicious application meant that the design of the graphic was less commercial and more cultural, and it added an affinity.

3) God, which integrates the essence of Chinese traditional culture into modern design. On the basis of mastering traditional graphic languages, further analyze and study the philosophical thoughts of Chinese traditional culture, grasp China's humanistic spirit, and combine contemporary social needs to create a mature, brand-new, original, performance of a national cultural spirit. At the same time, it is an artistic language with the personality of a designer. For example, the logo design of Hao Qiang Design Co., Ltd. is another example of the successful combination of Chinese traditional auspicious culture and modern aesthetic concept. The company’s logo uses the “Fang Sheng” pattern as the basic framework, and “Fang Sheng” is a unique auspicious cultural graphic of China. It expresses the good intentions of being united and communicating with each other, combining the "plate length" pattern to convey a long-standing, continuously growing, complementary idea. This is an active emotional sustenance for the pursuit of a happy life. application. Mr. Qiang exerts himself to make his design more emotional and more philosophical to his expression. Although it originated from the traditional “Fang Sheng” pattern, it was not copied according to reality, but after the image was re-created, the logo was more adapted to the future use.

The five-thousand-year cultural civilization of China is used for design. It is all about meaning. It is all about shape. It is inexhaustible. The design of life and nature is the fundamental design; the design of culture and art is the real design.

Third, modern packaging design should be an organic combination of commodity and cultural and artistic

In commercial packaging, it is often necessary to renew packaging due to changes in society and changes in the market. The market determines the product and determines the direction of the product's publicity, and thus to a large extent also determines the trend of product packaging design. Therefore, designers must have a deep understanding of market trends and consumer psychology, and master market demand. On the basis of extensive market research, we understand the background and characteristics of this industry and this product, communicate with manufacturers and consumers, compare the positioning strategies of competitors, and then accurately position ourselves and strive to create brand personality. At the same time, we should dig deep into China’s rich cultural heritage, find and collect the essence of national art, and use modern aesthetics and advanced scientific and technological means to draw lessons from traditional and folk ways of modeling and re-deconstruction, transformation and development. To achieve the perfect combination of the two.

Business design is a balanced knowledge. It must not be conservative, nor can it go too far. The high and low scores won't win the market's recognition and it cannot create real value for customers. It should be a fusion of sales function and artistic beauty, an innovative combination of practicality and culture. To grasp the psychology of consumers and meet the needs of the market, we should also pursue the beauty of the artistic conception designed to improve the cultural connotation of products, meet the needs of the spirit of the consumer, and achieve a harmonious unity of merchandise and culture and art, and become “shaped”. God has both "designed works" with "interesting" designs.

Design is not art! But I believe that every designer can not give up on the pursuit of art and longing. When we denied that design was an art, we affirmed that it was an art and a pure art. I believe that a good design can create high profits in the commercial field, and at the same time it can be put into art galleries. As a real work of art, it can create irresistible light together with sculptures and paintings.



Qingdao University School of Fine Arts Sun Jianlei

Source: Packaging and Design