Thoughts on Candy Packaging

I've never been into Halloween, trick-or-treating, or scary costumes, but the one thing I do like about today's holiday is candy.  And I thought it might be appropriate to make today's post a critique of some famous candy wrappers, in honor of the fact that there will undoubtedly be very much candy circulating around today, and entering the mouths of delighted children as well. 

First off, Reese's cups, one of my favorite candies ever.

First of all, have you noticed that the entire color scheme for the packaging is reminiscent of peanut butter?  Sure, there's no "peanut butter tan" color on the packaging, but the orange, yellow, and brown together give a representative feeling of peanut butter.  The colors just look like the right colors for peanut butter cups, don't they?  I'm fairly certain that Reese's cups wouldn't sell as well if the packaging was blue and green.

Now let's take a look at the typography.  First, a classy yet retro cursive font is used for the "Reese's" logo, and then a bold font is used for the descriptions of the candy.  I think this font combination perfectly captures what a Reese's cup is - sophisticated and smoothly delightful (cursive font), yet strong, confident and not hoity-toity (bold font). 

At this point, you're probably thinking that I am a total graphic design nerd that I actually take the time to think about these things, and you're probably right!  But there's more...

Take a look at the traditional Hershey bar packaging.  This is one of the most classic candy wrappers ever.

I love that this candy wrapper mimicks the structure of the candy bar almost exactly.  The wrappper's base color is chocolate (not just "brown," mind you), just like the candy bar itself.  Also, the color choices in general provide a rich testament to the quality of the candy bar: silver and chocolate look regal, but yet not prissy.  The font choice contributes to this as well.  The "Hershey's" font is bold and eye-catching - just the thing for a piece of packaging.  The "Milk Chocolate" font, on the other hand, is more rounded and approachable, providing the perfect combination of ease and importance.

For our last candy package survey, let's do something fruity... how about Skittles?  This packaging scores big in my book right from the get-go.  Can you guess why?  The red.  Of course.

Besides the fact that the red catches my attention from the get-go, I love this packaging!  The color scheme is just perfect, and it goes with the colorful nature of the candy itself.  The addition of the rainbow is excellent as well - it reminds me of the rainbow-like sensation of crunching a few Skittles and tasing the explosion of fruity flavor.  The illustration of the Skittles on the packaging is well-done, too.  They look realistic and not too cartoonish.

The font choice is, overall, good.  The bold font is eye-catching, but the white makes it approachable at the same time.  The handwriting font works, but honestly, I would've prefered a less "cute" font for this type of packaging.  That's just my opinion, though.  The only other thing that bugs me a bit about the typography is the lack of a dot on the "i" in Skittles.  It's not horribly distracting, but I personally don't see a real reason for leaving it off.  The English nerd in me balks slightly at the useless omittion of part of a letter.

I hope that my complete graphic design nerdiness has amused you today, and also shown you that there is excellent design to be found all around us.  It's not limited to websites and logos - package designers are brilliant artists as well, and their ubiquitous work is worth noticing and enjoying...at least, I think it is.