We all intuitively know that beautiful things come in beautiful packaging.

The iconic powder-blue Tiffany’s box, the gorgeous modern “Designed In California” packaging from Apple, both examples of where packaging enhances the product experience.

As an interesting contrast, a few-years ago Amazon introduced their Frustration-Free Packaging initiative. It seems like they did it both to save the environment (less bulky plastic glossy clamshell packaging designed for store shelves getting shipped direct from the warehouse), and probably also because it saves money for the manufacturer to save on packaging, and saves Amazon shipping costs.

The Amazon packaging has not, from what I can tell, been wildly popular. It’s interesting to me because it’s better than 90% of the terrible packaging out there, but it ruins the experience for the 10% of packaging that has been done really well (see Tiffany’s and Apple).

Either way, I fully support getting rid of all the crap packaging out there. Let’s either go convenient and boring, or thoughtful, beautiful, and delightful. Rid ourselves of the junk in the middle.