# Package Design I: The Basic Why and How - review & insight | Gareth B. Davies Source: https://garethbdavies.com/course-insights/package-design-i-the-basic-why-and-how/ [← All courses](https://garethbdavies.com/course-insights/) Graphic Design · Solid intro · Rated 6 /10 # Package Design I: The Basic Why and How By Gareth B. Davies · Updated August 2026 Trina Bentley · Owner, Make & Matter Beginner · 56 min A tight 56-minute primer on packaging history, shopper psychology, and dieline mechanics, but it stops short of teaching you to design anything yourself. [Get a Free Month on Skillshare](https://skillshare.eqcm.net/c/3155494/298081/4650?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.skillshare.com%2Fclasses%2Fpackage-design-i-the-basic-why-and-how%2F2057517376) New to Skillshare? Your first month is free, enough to take this course at no cost. Trina Bentley's "Package Design I" is built as a survey course, and it behaves like one throughout. Over eight short lessons it moves from packaging history to shopper psychology to design goals to a run of technical topics: dielines, product windows, certifications, and label regulations. Nothing here asks the student to open a design file. The stated class project, recreating a die for a cereal box, is framed at the end as a bridge into her second course rather than something worked through in this one. ## What the course actually covers The historical section is brisk, tracing packaging from ceramic vessels and woven bags through the 1700s invention of tinning, the 1813 opening of the first commercial canning factory in London, and into 20th-century materials like plastic and cellophane. It is context, not technique, and it runs only a few minutes before moving on. The audience section is more useful. Bentley walks through Nielsen-sourced shopper demographics (roughly two-thirds female, average age 47, price cited by 85 percent of consumers as the top purchasing factor) and four shopping modes: auto-pilot buyers who grab the same product out of habit, variety seekers who browse for something new, buzz shoppers pulled in by branding, and bargain hunters working from a coupon list. This framework gives students a vocabulary for who they are actually designing toward, which matters more than it might sound. The section on design goals is where the course earns its keep. Bentley breaks packaging success into two jobs: communicating information in the right priority order (brand name first, then product differentiation, then secondary claims and certifications) and grabbing attention on a crowded shelf. Her explanation of brand blocking, pointing to Tide's orange and the original Cheerios yellow box as products that visually own a color on the shelf, is a concrete, applicable idea that a design student could carry into their own work immediately. ## Where it thins out The back half of the class shifts into pure reference material: how to read a dieline's trim line, bleed line, fold lines, and eyespot; how sealed formats like wraps, bags, and pouches restrict where artwork can go; sizing rules for nutrition labels, net weight text, and certification logos. This content is accurate and specific, down to exact point sizes for nutrition fact type and the eighth-of-an-inch minimum height for a non-GMO seal. But it is delivered as narrated facts over static slides rather than demonstrated, and none of it is practiced. A beginner with no packaging background will absorb the vocabulary but not the judgment that comes from actually laying artwork onto a die. That gap is the course's central limitation. It bills itself as beginner level, but a true beginner graphic designer will finish it knowing terms like dieline, eyespot, and fill line without having used any of them. The Skillshare blurb pitches it toward "intermediate graphic designers interested in products," which is a more honest description of the intended audience than the beginner label suggests. As an orientation to the discipline, the course succeeds. It gives a working designer the mental checklist to bring into a real packaging project, and the brand blocking and shopper-mode framework are worth the runtime alone. Anyone expecting to walk away with an executed design, or even a completed dieline exercise, needs to continue into the second class to get there. The standout The walkthrough of brand blocking, using Tide's orange and Cheerios' yellow as examples of how repeated color on a shelf becomes an instantly recognizable visual block, gives a genuinely transferable shelf-strategy concept. ## What you will learn - · A condensed history of packaging materials from ancient pottery through tinning, canning, and modern sustainable substrates - · How to read grocery shopper demographics and the four shopping modes (auto-pilot, variety seeker, buzz shopper, bargain hunter) - · The two core goals of package design: clear information hierarchy and shelf-standout tactics like brand blocking - · How to read a dieline, including trim lines, bleed lines, fold lines, live areas, and eyespots for machine cutting - · Format-specific layout rules for labels, wraps, bags, pouches, boxes, and gable boxes - · Regulatory basics for certifications, net weight sizing, nutrition labels, and alcohol label requirements Best for: A graphic designer with print or branding experience who wants a structured orientation to packaging's history, audience research, and technical constraints before attempting an actual package design. Skip it if: Anyone hoping to leave with hands-on die-cutting or layout skills, since the class stays entirely at the explanatory level and defers actual execution to a second course. Helpful Examples Clarity of Instruction Organization of Lessons Engaging Teacher [Get a Free Month on Skillshare](https://skillshare.eqcm.net/c/3155494/298081/4650?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.skillshare.com%2Fclasses%2Fpackage-design-i-the-basic-why-and-how%2F2057517376)