Packaging is more than a pretty face. It's the product's first promise.

Detailed summary

Wonder Middle East founder Medina Beganovic explains why effective packaging design goes beyond visual appeal to communicate a product's value, strengthen brand recognition and influence consumer choices

Before a consumer tastes a product, tries it or understands what makes it different, they often encounter its packaging. In a crowded retail environment, those few seconds can influence whether a product gets noticed, understood and ultimately chosen.

For Medina Beganovic, founder of Dubai-based creative agency Wonder Middle East, packaging design is not about following the latest visual trend. It is about translating a product's purpose, functionality and value into a design people can recognise and remember.

"Packaging has a job to do. It needs to communicate what the product is, why it matters and what makes it worth choosing. If the design looks beautiful but doesn't communicate those things, we've missed the point," said Beganovic.

As visual trends move rapidly across social media and global markets, brands can feel pressure to refresh their packaging to stay relevant. But constant redesign does not necessarily build a stronger brand. It can weaken recognition, create inconsistency and leave consumers struggling to identify a familiar product.

The challenge is to create packaging that feels distinctive today while remaining relevant tomorrow.

That starts with understanding the product itself: how it is used, what consumers need from it, where it sits on the shelf and which features genuinely differentiate it. Material, format, hierarchy, colour, typography and structure should all serve a purpose, not simply follow an aesthetic trend.

"Good packaging doesn't need to shout to be noticed. It needs to know what it stands for. The strongest designs create recognition over time because they express something fundamental about the product, not just what's fashionable at that moment," Beganovic added.

For FMCG brands across the GCC, where local products compete alongside established international names, packaging is both a commercial tool and a long-term brand asset. It must work in seconds at the point of purchase while building familiarity over months and years.

At Wonder…

Opening of the article, excerpted from Khaleej Times Business. To read the rest, open the article on the publisher's site.