Packaging has always relied on symbols, long before a consumer reads the small print, they have already interpreted colour, shape, typography and imagery as signs of what a product is and what it promises.

In increasingly crowded categories, however, iconography is taking on a more functional role, rather than simply embellishing a pack, graphic symbols can operate as a visual shorthand: translating complex information into something that can be understood almost instantaneously.

The recent relaunch of M&S Formula provides an interesting lens through which to consider this shift. Formula sits within a particularly difficult category for packaging design.

Contemporary skincare speaks the language of peptides, retinoids, ceramides, acids and percentages, while consumers ultimately want answers to much simpler questions: What does this do? Is it right for my skin? Where does it fit in my routine?

That tension between scientific complexity and consumer simplicity is central to Formula’s current positioning. The relaunched 16-product range emphasises advanced ingredients while attempting to make skincare straightforward and accessible. Emma Willis, who fronts the relaunch, describes the idea as skincare that does not overcomplicate the category: sophisticated formulations translated into products that fit easily into everyday life.

The icon as translator

An icon occupies very little physical space, yet it can carry a surprising amount of meaning. A droplet can suggest hydration. A sun implies protection or daytime use. A crescent moon immediately communicates night. A simplified skin barrier can imply repair, while a sparkle has become almost universally associated with brightness or radiance.

None of these symbols explains a formulation in scientific terms. Instead, they translate technical propositions into recognisable outcomes.

That distinction matters.

Effective packaging does not necessarily need to educate consumers about every mechanism behind a product. It needs to create a hierarchy of information that allows someone to understand the proposition quickly, before offering greater detail to those who want it.

Iconography therefore acts almost like a user interface for physical products.

The comparison with digital UX is useful. We rarely need the word “search” beside a magnifying glass or “settings” beside a cog because repeated use has taught us what these symbols mean. Packaging can create similar visual conventions. When a coherent icon system is applied across a range, consumers begin to navigate products through recognition rather than repeated reading.

Formula and the architecture of choice

Formula contained multiple skincare collections, so the designers created a structured packaging architecture in which collection names occupied consistent positions, colour bands differentiated ranges, and prominent words, percentages and claims communicated product benefits. The intention was to make a large portfolio easier to understand both on shelf and online.

Iconography offers another layer within that architecture. Where typography asks the customer to stop and read, a symbol can create recognition at a glance. Used systematically, icons can connect individual products while simultaneously differentiating their functions.

This creates a useful paradox. The pack can become visually simpler while actually communicating more.

From label to system

The most successful iconography does not operate as a collection of isolated illustrations. It behaves as a system.

Line weight, geometry, scale and placement establish a visual grammar. If one icon is delicate and linear while another is solid and illustrative, the relationship between them weakens. But when every symbol appears to have been constructed according to the same rules, the consumer begins to perceive a family.

This is especially valuable for brands such as Formula because the identity has to stretch across different products, ingredients and skincare needs. The brand does not have to give every SKU an entirely different visual identity. Instead, a consistent framework can accommodate variation.

Traditional packaging ranges often repeat a logo, typeface and layout, changing little more than a colour or product name. A more sophisticated identity creates rules that allow individual products to behave differently while remaining recognisably related.

M&S itself appears to be moving towards a broader philosophy of packaging in which own-brand products are allowed more distinctive visual personalities rather than being forced into rigid supermarket templates. Its packaging team has described a move towards more expressive design, with graphic treatments helping products stand out not only on shelf but in digital and social environments.

The new language of science

There is also a wider aesthetic context.

Skincare packaging has spent much of the past decade borrowing visual codes from laboratories and pharmacies: white space, restrained typography, ingredient percentages and clinical naming conventions. These devices communicate efficacy, but their ubiquity has created another problem. If every brand looks scientific, science itself stops being distinctive.

Iconography provides one possible way out.

A proprietary symbol system can retain the clarity and authority associated with clinical design while introducing something more recognisable and ownable. The visual identity no longer depends entirely on another minimalist sans-serif wordmark. Instead, meaning becomes embedded in a collection of shapes.

This is where iconography moves beyond information design and becomes brand identity.

An icon does not have to literally depict an ingredient or benefit. The strongest systems often occupy the space between diagram and abstraction. A symbol may initially suggest hydration, renewal or protection, but repeated exposure allows it to acquire a second meaning: Formula.

Designing for the glance

Packaging today also has to survive at radically different scales. It might be encountered from several metres away in store, held in the hand, photographed on a bathroom shelf or reduced to a thumbnail on a phone screen.

Detailed visual storytelling does not always survive those transitions.

Simple icons do.

Research into visual attention on packaging reinforces the importance of placement, visual saliency and the interaction between graphic and textual information in determining what consumers notice. This makes iconography particularly suited to contemporary retail because it can establish hierarchy without requiring additional copy.

The question for designers is therefore no longer simply, What information needs to appear on the pack?

It is also: How quickly can that information be recognised?

Simplicity is not the absence of information

The Formula example points towards a broader principle in packaging design. Simplicity should not mean stripping information away until a pack becomes anonymous. It should mean organising information so effectively that complexity becomes effortless to navigate.

Iconography can play a significant role in achieving this.

At its weakest, an icon is decorative shorthand: another small graphic competing for attention. At its strongest, it compresses an entire proposition into a recognisable visual cue. Across a portfolio, those cues become a language.

And once consumers learn that language, packaging begins to function less like a label and more like an interface.

For Formula, that idea feels particularly appropriate.

The brand promises to make sophisticated skincare easier to understand. Its packaging has to perform the same task.