8 Principles for Developing Sales-Boosting Designs

This blog post was updated in September 2026 to reflect the most recent information, data, and insights available at the time of publication.

Designalytics has measured the performance of thousands of package designs across consumer-packaged-goods categories. We’ve analyzed troves of data, conducted in-depth interviews with award winners over multiple years, and worked with incredibly talented brand and agency teams every day to learn why some package designs skyrocket brand growth, while others fall flat—or even result in sales declines.

So, what makes a winner? Here are eight themes we hear over and over from the teams who successfully drive growth through design:

Winners set clear goals before they embark on a redesign—they know what they’re hoping to achieve, and where their existing design falls short. More than that, they constantly evaluate the creative they’re developing against these criteria, and they do it with radical honesty. I love this design, but is it really communicating “healthy” better than the old packaging? That design is delightfully bold, but is it pushing the brand too far?

For some brands, a brief may also include enough space for an agency to get… well, creative. Take CVS Beauty, for example. The brand's creative brief called for designs that were “special, desirable, yet wholly familiar”—while offering the agency license to create something new and exciting. That sparked an idea for the agency, CBA USA, to hold working sessions with everyone from brand marketing and internal design teams to those on the front lines in stores. "I don't think we would've learned as much if we only had the written brief as a reference,” said Elainne Roberton, managing partner at CBA USA.

CVS Beauty’s resulting redesign was a resounding success for the private-label brand, increasing sales by 20%.

2. Recognize when a redesign should be evolutionary, not revolutionary

Over the past few years, a number of our winners were redesigns for well-established brands—ones that already had top-performing designs. This is the kind of high-wire act that brand managers dread, since it involves considerable risk. However, we’ve repeatedly seen that 1) it’s possible to improve on an already-successful design; 2) evolutionary changes can have an enormous impact; and 3) respect for existing brand equities is absolutely vital for success.

In these cases, the best creative agencies tread carefully, making highly strategic decisions about which package elements to amplify, edit, or eliminate. Often, the change may not appear dramatic—but the sales results can be.

As a decades-long leader in skin and sun care, Neutrogena knew it needed to approach its redesign carefully. A test-to-learn approach allowed the brand to screen concepts, ensuring they connected with potential buyers without alienating loyal consumers. In the end, they found the right balance between bold and modern while staying authentic to the brand, driving a 7.5% increase in sales.

3. Remove unnecessary constraints and explore broadly

At the start of a redesign initiative, the brand and agency work together to determine which existing visual assets are “must-keep” because they’re distinctive and meaningful to consumers. Winners are able to be judicious during this process; they’re willing to consider that elements they might have thought were crucial really aren’t—and that marking them “hands-off” would preclude potentially successful design solutions.

Even in the case of evolutionary redesigns, winners tend to go broad in the creative exploration phase. They believe they’ll know “how far is too far” only when they’ve gone too far.

To create a foundation for future growth, Solely worked with two agencies on a broad design exploration. The resulting “truthful, bold, and honest” design pairs cross-sectioned real fruit with an illustrated hand, an established distinctive asset. The redesign grew sales by more than 61%.

Many consumer-packaged-goods brands (especially large ones) wait until the end of the creative process to validate a chosen design direction with consumer research—much too late in the game to provide meaningful direction to creatives.

Winners tend to get consumers involved earlier; they screen initial design concepts with consumers (ideally, quantitatively), use this feedback to refine their designs, re-test with consumers—and repeat as many times as necessary. The value of consumer research is in testing to learn and improve, not to green-light a finished design.

 

Organic Valley conducted “shop-alongs” with consumers who regularly purchased the brand and its competitors. The conversation uncovered unexpected insights that helped shape the redesign, and the brand also utilized consumer research when selecting and refining the final designs. The redesign helped Organic Valley grow sales by 10% in the six months following its rollout.

If there’s one design performance area that reigns supreme when it comes to packaging effectiveness, communication is surely it. In fact, successfully communicating the attributes that are most important to category buyers is highly correlated (88%) with sales performance. There’s one caveat, though: This applies to communicating what’s objectively important to category buyers—which is determined by asking those consumers—not what your brand thinks is important.

To stake their claim in an exploding category, Nuun moved quickly to make the product easier to understand at shelf. By cutting back on storytelling copy and strategically using color, the redesign put the focus on the product’s key benefit: hydration. The new look increased sales by 7.9%.

6. Adopt bolder, more consistent branding—especially in the case of challenger brands

When challenger brands recount their success stories to us, nearly every one mentions the importance of boosting brand awareness. Typically, this is achieved by creating a more cohesive design system that can be applied across product variants, and by enlarging the branding on the packaging. While we’d never suggest that a particular approach will work for every brand, it’s difficult to overlook this common thread when it comes to effective redesigns by challenger brands.

Laird Superfood needed a unified system that could work across categories and appeal to a broader consumer base. The new packaging leaned into the confidence of its namesake (surfer Laird Hamilton) with a bolder brandmark, stronger taste appeal, and a focus on what’s authentic to the brand. After the redesign launched, sales rose nearly 6%.

7. Punch up imagery related to taste (or sensory) appeal, when applicable

Across almost every food and beverage category, “tastes great” is the top purchase-driving attribute, according to our cross-category database. Perhaps it’s no surprise, then, that redesigns leveraging tastier product, flavor, or ingredient imagery reliably perform better than their less-delectable counterparts.

For a brand that was ready to grow, Laoban’s previous packaging had clear limitations. So they created a flexible design system that amped up taste appeal, adding tantalizing toppings and showcasing the high-quality ingredients inside. The updated packaging won over consumers, and sales soared 296%.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with being trendy, but winners don’t adopt fads just for the sake of it—they make well-reasoned design decisions that reference their brand’s specific goals and their consumers’ needs. That said, there are times when being contrarian does make sense for a brand and presents a valuable differentiation opportunity. As Fred Hart of Hart Brands puts it: “Challenge the category, not the consumer.”

While other brands in the category focused on trendy visuals and niche audiences, Partake Brewing’s redesign demonstrated its unique value to consumers. The brand leaned into a full palette of confident colors and nostalgic cues while highlighting functional benefits consumers wanted. The redesign contributed to a 29% sales growth.

Is your brand about to embark on a redesign? Designalytics can help you make smarter design decisions from the first concepts to the final package. Request a demo to see how Designalytics can support your next redesign.