It is safe to say that I see a lot of packaging design. Likely more than anyone else in the world. In 2007, I created The Dieline to begin to document and define what I believe to be the world’s best examples of packaging design. 7 years later we have become the leading package design resource online, where we receive over 5,000 package design submissions a year.

We have also produced 7 thought-provoking packaging design conferences and have held 6 annual The Dieline Awards competitions formally recognizing well-designed consumer package design worldwide. Through The Dieline Awards annual competition, where we receive over 1,000 entries a year, we have awarded over 180 awards and have hosted 8 exhibits of our winners around the world.

Seeing so much packaging design on a daily and yearly basis puts me in a very unique position to identify the emerging trends amongst the sea of the same. It has trained my eye to be able to start seeing patterns, connections, and themes emerge in consumer products and packaging design. As these patterns start becoming more established and embraced by designers, agencies, and consumer product companies worldwide, they become emerging trends.To really nail down these emerging trends and ensure that they do indeed exist, we make sure they are backed up by analytical data from The Dieline. Toward the end of each year, our team of editors begin an internal process to distill our insights into the emerging trends that every designer needs to know. In addition to our insights, we are able to see what trends are really emerging by examining the most viewed and shared projects each year by our readers.