AND MORE...

I need to decide what my target customer is, this obviously varies to what kind of product box I want to design..

Cereal:
Something like bran flakes would appeal to a healthy adult, male or female, the packaging is simply telling the buyer the nutritional information, shows a picture of the actual product and is usually a very grown up simple design...
Then there is the opposite...A cereal for kids, always a very bright colourful design with a lot going on. Usually with some kind of cartoon character and in some cases a free toy.

Cosmetics:
Make up is obviously aimed at females. It can vary dramatically though in the brands target audiences... There is very cheap make up for younger girls and young teenagers, very cheap, very girly, very pink! It can be very clean and organic (like a face cream box design) this would be aimed at an older female who just wants a simple face cream, this kind of packaging is what tghe brand Clinique uses, they have a huge range of creams, serums etc and they are all in very similar packaging, it is very much a brand design rather than individual products. Their packaging seems very clean, exactly what they want their product to come across as, it uses very soft pastel colours and small type.
A lot of cosmetics are sold by the packaging it sits in... Most expensive cosmetic packaging is very sleek, it makes the product look like more than it really is.

Chocolate boxes:
Again this can vary a lot...A child would be attracted to a big Christmas variety box where as an adult would rather something smaller and better quality. There can also be big campaigns aimed specifically at different genders, for example the chocolate Yorkie is designed for men...Their one liner is 'Not for girls', a big, bulky chocolate for a big man! Hilarious really! But this is a huge trademark for Yorkie now.

Toys:
This is obviously mainly aimed at children, similar sort of designs to kids cereal boxes, a big brightly coloured box, showing the child all the amazing toys inside! But toys can also be packaged differently when aimed at adults to buy for children, what may seem like a boring design to a child can make an adult think what a well made, good quality toy for their child to play with...

So basically the categories are:
- Small children
- Young girls
- Young boys
- Teenage girls
- Teenage boys
- Parents
- Adults buying for children
- Teenagers
- Women in groups of 18-30, 30-45, 45-60, 60-80
- Men in the same groups

I need to decide what kind of product box I want to design and before I start find a target group.