Yes, you can have too much frosting on your cake.

Communicating through package design is more challenging than ever. Clients are more astute, customers are smarter and more selective, so our job of designing is more important than ever. Branding plays a clear role of cutting through the visual clutter of packaging but it only plays a part. Good design, clear design that creates positive eye tracking is tricky to get right.

One of the challenges we face every day is impact. It seems there is a drive to make everything on a package bigger, brighter, louder, with drop shadows, bevels, and metallic ink. We have a term for it here at Forward: "European flair". Don't get me wrong. There are times when a small drop shadow, or a gradient can really make a difference in a design. Take something good and make it great. But there are other times when everything in a design is large, shiny and in your face. When everything in a design is sizzle, it's tough to taste the steak. Your eye tracking is less predictable and the communications can suffer.

Here's another way of looking at it. You are in a small room with five other people. Each one of the five needs to say something important that could make you buy a product. If they all yell at once you have a loud noise that will get noticed, but will it say anything? You might walk away with some understanding, but not the whole story. This is an overdone package. Yes it's exciting, but later you might need a Tylenol. Instead, the five people need to take turns, each giving you their information. If each part of a package design has it's own part to play, message to communicate, you will help consumers read your package more quickly, understand more completely and buy it.

- Dillon (see my page here)