Who is the target audience?

Mediocre package design for awesome PC gear. I think BFG tech has improved design significantly with their newest product line. EVGA has been rated the best hardware manufacturer, but their packaging is mediocre and remains unchanged from a few years ago. For those who do not keep up with the latest benchmarks and don't know a companies reputation for quality, they may pass over the EVGA brand to get the BFG. Better Box ≠ Better Product.

So why waste the time to create these horrible designs?
If I bought a graphics card with this packaging I would worry about how badly it was going to perform. Luckily, that isn't the case here, but still, I would rather just see a photo of the motherboard or graphics card. At least that would be more interesting.





For all the "monstrosities" go here.

BFG has improved their retail packaging significantly in the last year. When I first built my PC I used a BFG nvidia 7600 GT which came in a lackluster package. It was "nvidia green", gray and had a clear section to look at the GPU fan. Wow. They have simplified the visuals and ordered information in a much more appealing way. This grabs my attention when browsing the retail isle more than ridiculous 3D renderings, flashy hologram stickers or horrid colors.

It's not perfect, but it is much better.

Before

The packaging shows the product, which could be good or bad. In this case, the product is not designed in a visually appealing way. The average person wouldn't know what they are looking at, they would just see some circuits, resistors and a fan. On BFG's newer cards (ie. GeForce 8 series) the heat-sinks are shrouded in plastic or metal, which would be great to showcase.

After

BFG tech's new packaging is easier on the eyes. The information is ordered in such a way that the eye moves from one point of interest to the next. They reduced the ambient "noise" by using a solid background. They highlight the name of the card "Nvidia Geforce 8800 GT" in green. This green on black is consistent with the Nvidia branding. The green accent color is used to help the eye move to the next point of interest "512MB GDDR3 Memory", which is important information to highlight. The secondary, detailed information is smaller and more subdued. They have included a simple scale for consumers to compare between their other products on a retail shelf. This scale highlights a range from Good -> Better -> Best. This serves as a quick scale of comparison for the non-technical consumer, but doesn't give a whole lot of detail to the "tech-advanced" consumer. That is where the rest of the package comes in.

The bulk of the technical information is neatly arranged on the sides of the box. Unlike the boring, bulleted list on the old BFG box, this list is visually separated into information boxes. Icons are used to highlight technologies included in the hardware. The way that the side wraps around, using the same gray color, to the front edge with the Nvidia logo is nice. It should stimulate the consumer to pick it up and turn it around. Overall, the design works together instead of the elements fighting for attention. It is a step in the right direction for hardware packaging.