Designing for Products That Don't Exist Yet

Most founders begin with the same question: "Can we design packaging for our first product?" And it's a perfectly reasonable place to start.

But I've always found myself asking a different question: What will this company become if everything goes right?

Not next month or after launch, but three or five years from now. What products will exist that haven't even been imagined yet or what categories will they enter? How should customers recognize them without having to learn the brand all over again?

Those questions rarely have immediate answers, but I believe they shape almost every important design decision that follows.

Packaging is often treated as the final stage of product development.

→ A logo is approved

→ A formula is finished

→ Manufacturing begins

→ Someone asks a designer to make it all look good

I think that's backwards.

By the time packaging becomes the conversation, many of the most important decisions have already been made, but design isn't simply about organizing information on a label.

Design anthropology

One of the disciplines that has influenced the way I think is design anthropology.

Rather than asking "What do people want?", design anthropology asks a different question: "How do people actually live?"

Researchers in this field study rituals, habits, objects, environments and everyday behavior before they design anything. They observe culture first and create products second. That idea resonates deeply with me.

Before I think about typography or materials, I try to understand the people a brand hopes to become part of, what already surrounds them and what do they naturally trust?

Or even what objects live on their kitchen shelves and inside their bathrooms? On their desks? What kind of visual language already feels familiar without becoming invisible?

Only after understanding that world do I begin searching for something new and NOT something unfamiliar. But something people are ready to recognize.

Some of my projects began exactly this way.

Healthy Yeti wasn't designed around a single supplement. It was imagined as a system capable of supporting future categories without rebuilding the brand every time a new product appeared.

Topia wasn't simply about coffee packaging. It explored how texture could become part of the brand's memory, creating recognition beyond logos or illustrations.

Even concept projects that never reached production often began with products that didn't exist, not because I wanted to predict the future, but because imagining future products helps clarify what the brand should become today.

Two books have quietly shaped the way I approach branding.

In The Design of Everyday Things, Donald Norman explains that great design begins by understanding people rather than objects. The better we understand habits, behaviors and everyday routines, the more naturally a product becomes part of someone's life.

In Alchemy, Rory Sutherland looks at the same challenge from another angle. He argues that value is rarely created through logic alone. Context, perception and emotion often change the way people experience a product far more than functional improvements ever could.

I often find myself working somewhere between these two ideas. Before thinking about packaging, I try to understand the culture people already live in. Then I look for a way to present something familiar from a fresh perspective - not by changing who they are, but by changing how they see it.

Founders often ask me how to build a brand that can grow and my answer is usually unexpected: Don't start by imagining your first successful product, but start by imagining your tenth. And only then design the first one as if it already belongs there.

Because the strongest brands don't simply launch products → They create worlds where future products already make sense.