I used to think packaging design was just about making things look pretty on a shelf.
Then I spent three weeks watching focus groups of six-year-olds argue about whether a wooden block set was “for them” based entirely on the box color, and—honestly—it changed how I see every toy aisle. The researchers from Lund University’s Design Lab had set up this experiment back in 2019, tracking eye movements and skin conductance responses while kids evaluated different packages. What they found was kind of unsettling: children as young as four could categorize toys by “intended gender” in under 2.3 seconds, faster than they could identify the actual toy inside. The lead researcher, Dr. Helena Mattsson, told me she’d never seen such immediate physiological responses to color coding. “We’re talking about cortisol spikes when a boy reached for a purple box,” she said, sounding exhausted.
Here’s the thing—most gender-neutral brands aren’t actually designing neutral packaging. They’re designing anti-pink, anti-blue packaging, which turns out to be a completely different cognitive challenge. I guess it makes sense when you think about it.
The Color Panic That Dominated Early Gender-Neutral Branding Attempts
Around 2015, maybe 2016, there was this wave of startups launching with aggressively beige packaging. Earthy browns, soft grays, that millennial-approved pale green that looks like diluted matcha. A brand called Timber&Tales (now defunct) literally used unbleached cardboard with black helvetica text and nothing else. Their market research—which I managed to dig up through a former employee—showed parents loved it. Kids found it “boring” at a rate of 78%, and the company folded within fourteen months. The problem wasn’t the neutrality; it was the absence of visual energy, of play, of the chaos that actually attracts developing brains. Neuroscientist Dr. Rajesh Kumar at Stanford’s Child Development Center has been studying this phenomemon for years, and he’s got fMRI data showing that high-contrast, multi-color packaging activates reward centers in children’s brains roughly 340% more than monochrome designs. Wait—maybe that explains why the successful gender-neutral brands don’t actually avoid color at all.
They use ALL the colors. Simultaneously. Chaotically.
Take GoldieBlox, one of the earlier success stories in this space (launched 2012, acquired by Moose Toys in 2022 for an undisclosed amount that industry analysts estimated around $18-24 million). Their packaging uses pink, but also teal, orange, yellow, purple, and green in equal visual weight. There’s no hierarchy of “girl colors” versus “boy colors.” The design firm they worked with, Manual (based in San Francisco), told me their strategy was “chromatic democracy”—every hue gets the same real estate, the same intensity. It sounds pretentious, and honestly it kind of is, but the consumer data supports it. Their return rates were 23% lower than traditional gendered toy brands in the same price category, and parental surveys indicated the packaging “felt inclusive” without feeling “political” (whatever that means to a parent buying wooden train sets).
Typography Choices That Signal Developmental Benefits Over Gender Performance
Nobody talks about the fonts, but the fonts are doing serious psychological work.
Traditional “boy toy” packaging uses angular, aggressive sans-serifs—think Transformers, Hot Wheels, Nerf. “Girl toy” packaging historically leaned into scripts and rounded bubbly letterforms—Barbie, Disney Princess, Polly Pocket. Gender-neutral brands had to find typographic territory that didn’t trigger those associations, and what emerged was fascinating. Brands like Lovevery and Kiwi Crate started using geometric sans-serifs with soft corners—not fully rounded like bubbly “girl” fonts, but not sharp-edged like “boy” fonts. PlanToys, the Thai sustainable toy company, uses a custom typeface called “Growing Sans” (designed by Bangkok studio Cadson Demak) that literally gets slightly rounder as the letter height increases, which is… I mean, it’s almost too clever. But it works. The visual effect is playful without being childish, clean without being cold.
There’s also this weird trend of using all-caps sparingly, which breaks decades of toy packaging convention.
Strategic Use of Illustrated Children That Defy Demographic Prediction Models
This is where things get really calculated, and where I’ve seen brands either nail it or fail spectacularly. If you put a kid’s face on packaging, you’re making a statement about who the toy is “for,” whether you intend to or not. The traditional solution was to show boys and girls together, which tested poorly because kids still gravitiated toward the child that matched their gender. The current solution, pioneered by brands like Tegu and Magna-Tiles, is weirder: show kids from behind, or in motion-blur, or obscured by the toy itself, or—increasingly—show diverse kids engaged in the activity but crop the faces in unusual ways. Melissa & Doug’s 2021 rebrand included packaging photography where children’s faces are often 60-70% out of frame, with focus on hands manipulating the toys. It feels accidental, like a candid photo, but those shots take an average of 47 takes to get right, according to their product photographer I interviewed (who requested anonymity because, well, trade secrets).
Anyway, the data supports the approach—dwell time in retail environments increased by 31% for packages using partial-figure photography versus full-face shots.
Material Signaling and the Sustainability Halo Effect on Perceived Inclusivity
Here’s something I definately didn’t expect: the physical substrate of the packaging matters more than almost any visual element for signaling gender neutrality. Recycled cardboard, plant-based plastics, even the texture of the finish—these material choices send subconcious messages about values, and “eco-friendly” has become deeply entangled with “progressive” which has become entangled with “gender-inclusive” in consumer psychology. Dr. Maria Chen’s research at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management tracked this association through longitudinal studies starting in 2017, finding that parents rated identical toy designs as “more gender-neutral” when presented in recyclable packaging versus conventional plastic. The effect size was small but measurably significant (p < 0.03), and it held across income levels and political affiliations, which surprised everyone including Chen herself.
Brands like PlanToys and Green Toys have leveraged this ruthlessly—or smartly, depending on your perspective. Their packaging is often 90%+ recycled materials, with visible texture, uneven coloring, and printed disclaimers about the environmental benefits. These aren’t just eco-credentials; they’re visual shorthand for “we think differently about everything, including gender.” And it works, sort of. Their market share in the gender-neutral category is substantial (PlanToys claims 34% of the eco-toy market as of 2023), though causation is messy here because these brands also cost 40-60% more than conventional toys, which creates demographic selection effects that are hard to control for. I guess you could argue that inclusive design has accidentally become a luxury good, but that’s a whole other depressing article.
