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There’s an art to building trust with the consumer while keeping the design fresh and simple, writes Saltmine Design Group’s Sara Salter.

Consumers are more information hungry than ever before. In a world where anything they want to know is a simple click away, the relationship between consumers and FMCG brands is shifting.

Shoppers want to know everything about the products they consume and use – from what the product contains or how the ingredients were sourced, through to how it stacks up in terms of nutritional or health benefits, or how it was tested.

Trust is much harder to build in this environment. Consumers are far more cynical than they have been in the past. This means they often approach brands with distrust rather than the other way around.

So, if consumers are demanding transparency about what they’re buying, how can packaging design meet this need?

Even if it was possible to include every piece of information about a product on the packaging, we know the end result would be a cluttered and confusing mess – and a frustrating consumer experience. Therein lies the design challenge.

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