The packaging industry is truly fascinating, but it can get complicated. How a box is made, or manufactured, requires many steps to ensure quality and accuracy. It can be costly to make a printed custom box and many precautions are initiated to avoid mistakes.
Let’s take a look at how a box is made from beginning to end.
1st Stage – Structural Design
A box designer/engineer will hand-build the box to fit your product.
This process may be repeated several times before the client settles on the right box for their product
Once the box structure is approved, it’s time to do a full mock-up with all the graphics in place. The structural design has a digital file of a dieline that your graphic designer applies the graphics onto
Once the graphics are done, a color mockup (with the graphics) of the box is made for the client’s approval. Color proofs are then made of your artwork on the structure of the box to ensure position, color, and layout.
2nd Stage – Pre-Production
A physcial die is made which is used to cut the shape of your box.
Inks are ordered and mixed.
Die plates are made of your graphics that go onto the press.
If you are foil stamping, the foil roll is ordered and the foil die is made.
And if you are embossing, the embossing die is made.
3rd Stage – Production Time
This is a massive lithographic printing press for printing on folding cartons.
The inks are printed on the packaging and a coating is applied which seals the ink on the paperboard
Then it moves to the die cutting machine where the box shapes are cut out.
4th Stage – Post Production
The excess paper is removed and now you have your box in a flat form
These flat boxes are then put onto a glue line where they will be folded and glued as needed
The final product is then packed at the glue line and will soon be ready for shipment.
And that, in a nutshell, is how a box is made.
This has been a part of my tutorial series called How to Buy Packaging 101. So click the link below to head back if you haven’t finished reading it yet. 🙂