In the 2025–26 landscape, packaging is no longer a vessel. It’s culture. It’s identity. It’s theatre.
According to the Pentawards Trends Report 2025–26, the world’s leading design houses are shaping a new era where packaging becomes experience, emotion, and even status symbol.

From inclusivity to interactivity, from dopamine-driven color to cosmic escapism, here are the shifts defining the future of brand expression.

1. Accessibility Becomes Aspirational

Trend: “Bye Bye Barriers”

Sustainability is now baseline. Accessibility is the next frontier.
The report highlights a fundamental mindset shift: inclusive design is no longer clinical or corrective — it’s desirable, intuitive, and central to brand identity.

Examples like Zense and Tilt Beauty show how ergonomic forms, tactile cues, hyper-legible type, and sensory layers can elevate the user experience for all, not just the few. Accessibility becomes a design ambition, not a limitation.

This is packaging as empowerment — stylish, modern, and purpose-led.

2. Typography Takes Over the Shelf

Trend: “Upfront Font”

2025 is the year type becomes the main character.
Oversized wordmarks, expressive scripts, and custom letters replace imagery altogether. When typography becomes the face, brands speak louder — and with more confidence.

Whether it’s Carbe Diem’s playful pasta identity or Chocolulu’s bold block-lettered tins, the visual noise is cleared away so the brand’s voice can take the lead.

This is minimalism, but with attitude.

3. Everyday Icons Become Cultural Symbols

Trend: “From Salad to Spotlight”

Tomatoes — yes, tomatoes — emerge as unexpected design heroes.
Their rounded geometry, glossy surface, and universally recognized red make them a perfect modern icon. Brands like Longbottom and Tomati&Co show how humble ingredients are becoming visual signatures.

The message is clear: the ordinary can be the most disruptive.

4. Packaging Becomes Play

Trend: “Game On!”

Gamified packaging is exploding.
It’s not enough to be beautiful — packaging must entertain, surprise, and spark interaction.

Designers are integrating:

• peel-off tokens
• collectible elements
• playful structures
• interactive mailers

From Connect 4 wine to Burt’s Bees heart piñata mailers, unboxing becomes a moment worth sharing — and a loyalty driver.

5. Pixel, Picture, and Pure Visual Power

Trend: “Pixel Perfect”

Photography steps into a new role: protagonist.
High-res crops, pixel blocks, and cinematic compositions turn packaging into immersive visual storytelling.
Brands like Dark Arts Coffee show how imagery can build full-blown collector cultures.

This is packaging as media — a lens rather than a label.

6. Colour as Emotional Technology

Trend: “The Dopamine Effect”

Bold color is now strategy.
Neon gradients, saturated palettes, soft playful shapes — these elements aren’t aesthetic choices, they’re mood activators.

From mental-health-forward brands like Oops HEART to joyful special editions like Lidl’s 25 Reasons, emotion becomes the differentiator.

Color becomes a form of care, optimism, and connection.

7. Packaging Meets Fashion

Trend: “From Catwalk to Carton”

The line between luxury goods and luxury packaging has dissolved.
Brands now borrow fashion codes to turn packaging into wearable, collectible, or couture-inspired objects.
Think Veuve Clicquot’s Stella McCartney holder or the Johnnie Walker Ice Chalet puffer bag.

Packaging becomes accessory.
Owning the bottle becomes part of the outfit.

8. Packaging as Theatre

Trend: “Display Drama”

Shelf impact is no longer two-dimensional.
Brands design packaging as modular systems — meant to stack, align, and create visual installations in-store and online.

It’s bold. It’s graphic. It’s made for the camera.

9. The Cosmic Turn

Trend: “Astral Aesthetics”

Design looks to the sky for inspiration.
Iridescent surfaces, lunar cycles, starfields, and sculptural forms transform products into portals.

4weeks Femme and Moonlight Tea show how celestial cues create elegance, serenity, and emotional escape.

This is packaging as a dreamscape.

10. Packaging as Sculpture

Trend: “The Art of Containment”

Finally, packaging becomes art.
Biomorphic shapes, crystalline bottles, carved textures — each piece feels like a collectible object meant to be displayed.

The future of packaging isn’t disposable.
It’s treasured.

Why These Trends Matter

This report underscores a deeper transformation:

Packaging is becoming the most powerful brand touchpoint.
Not a container, but culture.
Not a box, but identity.
Not a cost — an experience.

Brands that understand this will dominate 2025–26.
Because in a world of limited attention, design that speaks emotionally, playfully, inclusively, or theatrically wins.