Medicine is a necessity in life, and their packaging design can directly affect the purchase and use of consumers. In today's society, the purpose of medicine packaging is not only to ensure the safety and effectiveness of medicines, but also from the...
Medicine is a necessity in life, and their packaging design can directly affect the purchase and use of consumers. In today's society, the purpose of medicine packaging is not only to ensure the safety and effectiveness of medicines, but also from the perspective of consumers, to ensure the efficiency of information transfer, but also to reflect the humane care of patients. Cold medicine is one of the indispensable products in children's growth, as a safe backup medicine, the highest sales in families with children. Recently, as the number of people who buy cold medicines at places other than pharmacies has increased, so has the number of medication accidents due to insufficient guidance from doctors. On the other hand, child patients, who are psychologically immature and emotionally sensitive, often feel fear when taking medicines and are therefore reluctant to take them. To ensure a safe and comfortable environment for children to take medicine, the packaging design of children's cold medicine is very important.
Therefore, based on the theoretical basis, this study selected the top 10 popular children's cold medicines in China and Japan in 2023 and compared and analyzed the visual factors of children's cold medicine packaging design in China and Japan, to find out the differences between the two countries and the problems of Chinese packaging design. To improve the safety and emotional experience of children's medication, consumers' opinions were collected through a questionnaire survey, and specific suggestions were made for the packaging design of children's cold medicine in China.
The questionnaire survey, SWOT analysis, and STP strategy analysis were used to determine the final recommendations for children's cold medicine package design. The results of the study are as follows.
First, the packaging design must be at the same time corporate image and consumer demand. The corporate logo of the new brand ‘Tongxin Pharmaceuticals’ adopts the Chinese pronunciation letters of ‘Tongxin Pharmaceuticals’ made from capsules, which symbolize cure and rehabilitation, while the letters represent the identity and recognition of the brand. The name of the brand is in bold black letters, with a clear difference in color from the background, and the English name of the medicine is marked for the convenience of users from different language backgrounds. Secondly, children are usually more interested in bright, vivid, and contrasting colors, and the colors of the new brand's packaging have been chosen to be yellow, green, and purple with higher brightness. Yellow is usually associated with sunshine and happiness, which can bring children a pleasant feeling, green symbolizes nature and health, which can bring children a sense of peace of mind and comfort, and purple gives a sense of mystery and fantasy, which can stimulate children's imagination. Thirdly, information in medicine packaging plays an important role in ensuring medicine safety and enhancing consumer trust. The layout of the information in the new brand is arranged in an up-and-down manner, with the name of the medicine and the illustration taking up a larger part. Fourth, cartoon illustrations can help consumers quickly distinguish children's medicines from adults' medicines. The new brand's packaging uses three different images of cartoon characters, and all of them use pictures of fruits to identify the flavor of the medicine, which helps to alleviate children's fear and anxiety about taking medicines. Fifthly, the new branded product uses paper for the outer container and HDPE plastic bottles for the inner packaging, with an interception line set on the outer packaging.
From the user's point of view, there is a certain value in package design research for the safety and emotional experience of using children's cold medicines. However, this study has limitations in selecting only 10 brands in the Chinese and Japanese markets. In future research, only by expanding the international market and the number of samples and analyzing better packaging designs can objective results be obtained. In summary, it is hoped that this research will have a positive impact on the development of children's cold medicine packaging design in my country, further improve the safety, convenience, and sustainability of packaging, and pay attention to the medication experience of child patients.