CoP Presentation

The CoP 2 essay spoke about the subconscious/psychological effects of how the consumer views and perceives packaging design and how it either makes them stop and think or just ignore it. Colours, pastiche, 'masculine' and 'feminine' design influences the consumer's decision when looking for products.

The idea of the practical outcome was to produce a product that is unisex and is a product that does what it says on the packaging. It is supposed to be simple and direct without having to sell it with extra factors and claims.

For the CoP 3 Creative Writing piece, I still want to address packaging as packaging is an area that I would like to specialise in. From CoP 2, I have realised there are a lot of problems with how brands market items and how there is a lot of stereotyping in health and beauty products where they are heavily 'masculine' or 'feminine'. Especially as society is changing, binary genders is outdated and people have become more accepting of others.

The shapes of skincare packaging is a product of the stereotypical ideology 'masculine' and 'feminine' design.

Men's product shapes are seen to be angular, wide and bulky. They use dark and bold colours to conform to the 'strong' male mentality.

Women's product shapes are seen to be slender, tall and curved. They are seen packaged with colourful, soft colour which stereotypically represents femininity.















Using Boots for market research confirms the stereotypical ideology of 'masculine' and 'feminine' products. There also is a lot more of women's skincare products than mens products that leads me to believe that brands prey on the insecurities and the beauty standards that women have to look up to in society and produce more products that claim to help with specific skin concerns.

Case studies and online articles will be used as research sources as gender stereotyping/non-binary genders is a relatively new topic in society as we are still going through a phase of societal changes.

There are some books that do mention gender stereotyping therefore they will also be used in the Creative Writing Piece.

For the practical, I will look into gender-neutral products and to research into their ethics and their reasoning behind their packaging design. Also, contact the brands to get some insight on their beliefs.