How to Incorporate Die-Cut Windows into Your Packaging

Over the years, die-cut window packaging has become a popular and important manufacturing process in creating illustrative designs.

In general, die-cutting involves a machine that cuts a particular material into the desired shape to create unique, custom packages.

However, with increasingly innovative and strategically-placed windows, many packaging designs are able to successfully highlight their actual products.

So how can you incorporate die-cut windows into your custom packaging design? Before we get started, it’s important to identify that there are actually 2 distinct types of window packaging:

Geometrical die-cut shapes
Innovative die-cut shapes

Geometrical Die-Cut Shapes

Believe it or not, geometrical die-cut packaging has been around for many years, but just merely uses raw geometric shapes. These geometric shapes usually take the form of circles, squares and rectangles. For example, Sfoglini Pasta, uses a pentagonal window to provide the buyers a sneak peak of its pasta.

It’s very simple but does a great job at grabbing the attention of the buyer by providing a preview of the product. This promotes quick-buying behaviour in the customer.

Nonetheless, in today’s highly concentrated retail environment, the use of geometric shapes is not enough to do the job! In order to stand out among the competition, more creative shapes must be used.

Innovative Die-Cut Shapes

To keep up with the trend of window packaging, geometric die-cut shapes have completely transformed into being highly innovative and more creative.

The impact of these shapes directly affect the consumers’ subconscious mind to draw their curiosity and attention. In fact, Good Hair Day Pasta is a great example as it incorporates innovative window shapes across its product line. These windows not only provide a sneak peak of the product, but captivates the person looking at the packaging as well.

Good Hair Day Pasta successfully uses innovative die-cut windows to capture the attention of buyers across its product line.

In fact, innovative die-cut windows have many advantages to offer such as:

Increase in sales due to quick buying: Die-cut window packaging has always been successful in promoting quick sales; but with more creative displays, it’s more effective in convincing customers to purchase the product.
Better connectivity: With more emphasis on innovative window packaging, there’ll be more transparency between your product and the buyer. The increased transparency will help in improving connectivity from a branding perspective.
Freshness and genuineness: This is very important if you’re selling edible products. You can ensure customer satisfaction by using the die-cut window to identify the freshness of the product.
Perception of high quality: Many high-end cosmetics companies use this to their benefit by promoting their premium quality products through transparent windows. Moreover, this adds an overall additional value to the company brand.

Apart from these advantages, die-cut window packaging is a noteworthy trend to follow because it’s so versatile and can be used to promote a variety of products!

Popular Examples

A commonly used example is an ingredient shape window. This window usually depicts the main ingredient used in a product inside. For example, if you’re promoting apple berry jam, the die-cut window can be in the shape of an apple or berry. Overall, it’s very effective in drawing attention.

Humorous windows are another popular example. These type of die-cut windows are usually made according to the shape of a mouth or an eye of famous cartoon characters. For example, the packaging design below for Beehive Honey Squares creatively shows a bear filling his mouth with the biscuits. The exaggerated features of his mouth not only show his love for the honey biscuits, but the quality of the product as well. This window is successful in urging consumers to instantly buy Beehive Honey Squares because it creates a fun and light atmosphere.

Beehive Honey Squares uses funny shape die-cut windows to show off its cereal.

Lastly, some windows take on the form of the actual name of the product die-cut over the pack. These name shape windows are effective in promoting brand awareness and creating brand impact. This way, your customers are less likely to forget the name of the product because of how it’s written.

How Can You Incorporate Them?

To recap, die-cut windows are becoming increasingly more popular across many industries as they’re rapidly taking branding to the next level.

As a result, if you’re a business looking to improve their brand awareness, remain competitive and stand out to your customers, you should consider incorporating windows in your packaging design.

With excellent customer service, our in-house packaging specialists and designer can help bring your designs to life! We understand the importance of brand awareness and can help you successfully incorporate die-cut windows into your custom packaging! Depending on what your end goal is, we can suggest different shapes of windows to add to your design and create a mockup for you with your product.