When designing your packaging you are going to be working with structural engineers and graphic designers. The structural engineer will create the size and shape (the structure) of the packaging and the graphic designer will essentially “decorate it”. Both are very important roles that need to be filled with qualified people. Depending on your needs, the packaging company you choose may offer these professionals to you for free or for a small fee tacked onto your order. These packaging professionals could be in-house or brokered out on your behalf.
Or you may have a larger budget and more specific tastes that require you to seek a packaging design agency or some gifted freelancers.
Either way, there are many considerations and decisions that need to be made during the designing process that will affect the overall final packaging.
Fancy Packaging Bells and Whistles
Depending on your packaging budget, it can be a lot of fun to explore the abundance of esthetic options as well as functional options that various packaging types have to offer.
Here is where I refer you to several blogs I’ve written about the differing structural modifications and exterior embellishments that are on offer for boxes. I focus on boxes here because they are arguable the most popular packaging types that presents the most varied amount of options.
This article shows off the options that affect the structural appearance of the boxes – Custom Box Add-Ons and Structural Modifications
And this article shows off the options that affect the exterior “look” of the boxes – Fancy Custom Box Add-Ons – Exterior Embellishments
The various coating options that are applied to boxes can also affect their appearance and durability – Coatings for Packaging – What You Should Consider
Printing and Color Options
Printing can be a vast and exhausting topic. But having a basic understanding can be useful as various printing methods can influence the appearance and durability of your packaging (not to mention the cost).
In this article I address the question, what is the best type of printing for packaging?
Color consistency is an important and often elusive ideal when it comes to packaging. Anyone who has purchased packaging and then 6 months later purchased it again has undoubtedly noticed that the colors in the new batch are slightly or hugely different from the first batch. There are solutions to this typical printing quirk.
First let me explain the ins and outs of color for packaging.
And next we’ll discuss the all important topic of how to get consistent color In packaging.
And in this article I talk about printing on corrugated boxes.
Quality of Materials
Another factor to consider when designing your packaging is the quality of materials that you have to choose from. Actually, most manufacturers won’t give you the option of choosing unless you specifically request certain materials. Usually they prefer to use their standard materials that they already have on hand and/or are comfortable using.
Especially where boxes are concerned there are truly vast amounts of different paperboard options out there.
I have two articles here that I think will convince you to at least consider the quality of the materials you are choosing for your packaging.
Graphic Design Considerations
I’ve worked with a lot of graphic designers over the last decade and a half. As you would expect some were excellent, but a lot of them were average or lower in both skill and knowledge. Often graphic designers are artistic and creative enough, but lack the technical skill needed for the specific challenges of packaging design.
So it is important to hire someone with real experience and actual packaging jobs under their belt. Ask to see samples of their work.
But even though you may hire a quality professional who is experienced, you, as the packaging buyer, should know some important concepts and particulars about graphic design for packaging.
This important article is all about keeping track of the many digital assets that will be created and used over and over again. I can’t tell you how often it happens that dielines, for example, are lost, or the wrong versions of digital files are used by accident, etc.
This next article is great for discussing what can go wrong when one relies too heavily on a digital proof to gauge and approve the quality of the final product.