Why the shape decides more than the label ever will

It would be fair to say a lot of packaging briefs arrive in the wrong order. The brand world gets agreed first, then the name, then the palette, then a designer spends six weeks on label artwork — and somewhere near the end, almost as an afterthought, someone asks the co-packer what formats they can run.

That's always felt a bit backwards. Format — shape — is the first thing a shopper registers on shelf, and they register it at distance, before the name, the story or the colour land. That's a powerful thing to have working for you, or against you. By the time they're close enough to take in the copy, the format has already told them what kind of thing you are, who you're for, and roughly what you ought to cost. Everything the label does after that is either reinforcing that message or quietly arguing with it.

So it's worth briefing format the way you'd brief positioning — because that's what it is.