The Brief: Getting packaging design right in 2025

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Introduction
In 2025, packaging design faces tighter sustainability targets, stricter budgets, and sharper consumer scrutiny. Success now depends on balancing usability, sustainability, material impact, and brand meaning – all within a system-level approach that works in real life.

Key Takeaways

• Usability is as critical as sustainability – if packaging is frustrating or impractical, it will fail regardless of its eco-credentials.
• Simplicity and clarity in sustainability claims build trust, while complex disposal routes and mixed materials undermine credibility.
• Reducing SKUs and creating well-designed, multi-functional formats can cut waste, improve efficiency, and strengthen brand presence.
• Creativity should be treated as a core asset from the start, working alongside engineering to solve both functional and sustainability challenges.
• Inclusive design considers different abilities, literacy levels, and market contexts, ensuring packaging works for a broader range of users.
• Credibility matters more than optics – gimmicky “green” gestures without substance damage trust.
• True impact comes from reducing material use altogether, not just swapping one material for another.
• Designing beyond disposal means planning for reuse, returns, modularity, and integration into circular systems.
• Anticipating regulations and building adaptable formats avoids constant redesign and future compliance risks.
• Packaging must be fit for real-world use across the supply chain – if it doesn’t work, nothing else matters.

Conclusion
The best packaging in 2025 isn’t chasing trends or ticking boxes – it’s removing friction, reducing waste, and delivering genuine value for users and brands. Companies that treat design as a strategic, system-wide tool rather than a last-minute finish will be better equipped to meet sustainability goals, withstand regulatory changes, and earn long-term credibility.

Packaging design has never operated in isolation, but in 2025 the pressure to get it right is sharper than ever. Sustainability targets are tightening, budgets are under scrutiny, and consumers are better informed. So, how can companies get it right? Smurfit Westrock’s Lisa Cain tells us everything we need to know.

Designing well this year means more than hitting the right cues. It means thinking through the full system. It means designing for usability, clarity, material impact and brand meaning - all at the same time. The margin for half-baked ideas is shrinking. The appetite for smarter thinking is growing.

Over the past year, I’ve seen where brands are getting it right and where they’re still falling short. This isn’t a checklist but a shift in mindset. If you want packaging that stands up to 2025, here’s where to start.

1. Make design usability-proof, not just eco-proof

A lower-impact material is only half the story. If your new pack leaks, cracks, spills or frustrates, it won’t stay in people’s hands for long. Sustainability doesn’t mean much if the user experience breaks down.

Whether it’s a refill pouch that’s impossible to open or a lid that doesn’t sit right, the little failures add up. Consumers notice. So do operations teams.

In 2025, successful design means looking at how people actually use packaging day to day. It means solving grip strength, clear instructions, clean dispensing and easy return or reuse. The sustainable solution also needs to be the better solution in real life.

2. Don’t overcomplicate sustainability

Sustainability isn’t earned through a long list of features. It’s earned through clarity. Choose fewer claims and back them up with evidence. Make disposal instructions simple. Design for one route, not five.

Mixed materials, unclear labels, or packs that rely on very specific recycling infrastructure confuse even the most well-meaning consumer. That’s not a system. That’s a guessing game.

The most credible packs this year were the ones that made sustainability feel intuitive. Clear materials, obvious benefits, and nothing that asked the user to do mental gymnastics.

3. Build less, but better

Packaging teams are still under pressure to support constant NPD and new launches. But at the same time, brands are trying to reduce volume, improve recyclability and cut complexity across their portfolios.

These goals often pull in opposite directions. The answer is not to do more with less. It’s to do less with purpose.

One well-designed, multi-functional format can often replace five single-purpose ones. Reusable or refillable packs work best when they are built to last, not made as a marketing gesture. Fewer SKUs with stronger design thinking behind them can ease operational strain, reduce waste, and improve recognition on-shelf.

4. Treat creativity as a supply chain asset

Creative thinking is still treated like a luxury in too many packaging projects. Brought in too late, shaved back under pressure, or replaced with safe defaults. That’s a missed opportunity.

Creativity is what solves structural problems. It’s what turns an idea into a scalable, cost-effective, standout format. It’s what makes a refill intuitive or a return system frictionless.

In 2025, creativity should not be applied after everything else has been decided. It should be brought in early, partnered with engineering, and given the room to do what it’s supposed to do - find better ways forward.

5. Challenge your assumptions about who you’re designing for

Not every consumer can open a stubborn lid or interpret an over-designed visual. And not every packaging system works for every region, market, or infrastructure.

Designing inclusively doesn’t mean compromising. It means asking better questions early on. Can this be opened one-handed? Does the design work for lower literacy? Will this format make sense without a how-to guide?

The best packaging ideas this year weren’t just clever. They worked for more people. They supported real behaviour. They made sense.

6. Don’t let good intent turn into gimmick

Some of the most frustrating examples in 2024 were packs that looked sustainable, sounded sustainable, but made no sense in practice. A pouch of microplastics sent as a “sustainability gesture.” A “reusable” bottle that wasn’t designed to last beyond two uses. A compostable pack with no composting route.

In 2025, credibility matters more than visibility. Consumers are getting smarter. Retailers are asking tougher questions. Governments are regulating harder. The pack can no longer be used to prop up a story that doesn’t hold together behind the scenes.

7. Design to reduce, not just replace

Too many projects still treat packaging design as a material replacement job. Swap this for paper. Swap that for fibre. Job done.

But often the bigger win is in taking material out altogether. Lighter weights, better nesting, tighter fits, smarter reuse. Those are the changes that don’t just make packaging feel better. They reduce the overall system impact, improve transport efficiency, and help businesses hit carbon goals without trading one problem for another.

8. Think beyond disposal

Designing for end-of-life is still important, but it’s no longer enough. What happens after the pack is used is just one part of the story.

In 2025, strong design thinking should also address reusability, secondary use, compact returns, and behaviour nudges that support circular systems. The pack might need to be durable. Or compact. Or modular. Or traceable.

These are system design questions. And they need system-level thinking.

9. Don’t wait for regulation to drive the brief

The best packaging in 2025 won’t be the ones that simply respond to new legislation. It will come from the teams that are already working with regulatory foresight, not fear. That means keeping up with EPR rules, recyclability thresholds and packaging tax changes, yes, but also making room for bold thinking ahead of time.

Packs that have to be redesigned every time the rules change won’t survive. Design for adaptability. Build in flexibility. Give yourself a cushion for the future.

10. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t matter

The thread that ran through nearly every post and comment I saw this year on LinkedIn was simple. If it doesn’t work in real life, it doesn’t matter.

That includes form, feel, format and function. It includes the way a customer uses it, the way a retailer handles it, the way it moves through a warehouse.

We can’t keep designing packaging to win awards or tick boxes. It needs to be fit for the real world. That’s how credibility is built. That’s how design earns its place.

Good packaging design in 2025 won’t be about chasing trends. It will be about removing friction, reducing waste, and reinforcing what the brand actually stands for.

That’s what the best teams are doing already. And it’s what I’ll keep exploring, questioning and sharing as the year unfolds.

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