La concepció de la identitat visual dels envasos. Una aproximació a la funció publcitària del packaging.

Abstract

The basic requirement to contain, preserve, store, transport and –more especially– to market products has transformed packaging into an authentic artifact of advertising communication. From this perspective, this doctoral thesis has the firm intention to increase the quality of scientific knowledge in packaging. Based on the idea that pack design is a consubstantial part of the product, this research addresses a reflection that must involves a significant improvement of the efficiency of packaging as a professional activity related to the design and the production of packs. The theoretical framework has been limited to the basic dimensions of the pack which are: communicative dimension, material dimension, commercial dimension and psychological dimension. Each of these dimensions of the visual artifact makes explicit reference to the construction, production, distribution and reception of the message in the process of advertising communication. In fact, the formulation of the visual message has become the leitmotiv of this doctoral dissertation. From there, the interest of the research has focused on the visual identity of packs as a tool through which to construct the message. To this aim, this scientific study focuses on the existence of a visual code that governs the structural and the graphic design of packaging –especially, those destined to fast-moving consumer goods– in order to facilitate their typological recognition in an adverse and very competitive scenario: the point of sale. Furthermore, we propose an analytical model of the visual code based on three concepts: order, complexity and congeniality. From this triad terminology we will describe its operation. This model of the visual code considered four study areas: structural, chromatic, typographic and iconographic. Only three variables have been selected in order to implement the experimental phase; on one hand, the structure of the container and, on the other hand, two specific chromatic values (called, base_color and auxiliary_color). The experimental methodology used was an analysis of variance in repeated measures design (a within-subjects factor). This approach has allowed us to do a multivariate statistical analysis that required a set of visual treatments. The pilot phase has been developed around two types of products; one group corresponds to a bottle of milk and, the other, a can of cola. In this way, we could analyze the main and the interaction effects caused by changes of the controlled variables. Based on these visual formulations, we were able to do the relevant statistical contrasts to confirm the hypothesis of the existence and the limits of the visual code. Also, we have observed the effects that its implementation has caused on the subjects’ preference for certain visual formulations.

Date of Award	8 Feb 2013
Original language	Catalan
Supervisor	Daniel Tena Daniel Tena Parera (Director)