Are you considering creating a product to sell? There can be no greater joy in life than creating something that consumers enjoy. Perhaps it’s a food product or a tech product.
Either way, the most important aspect of it is often not the product itself but the packaging it’s wrapped in. You have to select the right packaging product or even create inspiring packaging; otherwise, your consumer may not even bother picking up your product.
So how can you make sure your product packaging design stands out on the market? Here’s everything you need to know.
What Program?
Before you start designing your packaging, you need to consider which program is best suited to accomplish this task. Sometimes it just takes a little extra help to make your packaging ideas a reality
Most packaging designers send their 2D graphics in vector format to manufacturers. Vector files are scalable, making it easy to create templates in vector programs such as Adobe Illustrator or Inkscape.
It gets a little harder when you want to conceptualize your design as a 3D product since much of the vector software on the market is designed to create 2D images. You can find plugins for various programs that can help you come up with product packaging design ideas. Or, you may hire a company that offers 3d product scanning services to have the work done.
Esko is a software plug-in for Illustrator that allows you to fold a dieline and display the design in 3D format. You can also rotate the packaging so that you can view the design from different angles.
Floorboard Flat Templates
The floorboard is a flat template that can be packed vertically or horizontally. Another packaging designer has Cinema 4D, which reproduces your flat design in 3D format. Many packaging designers are skipping Esko in favor of mockups in Adobe Photoshop.
The diameter indicates where the packaging template is cut, where it is perforated, and where the imprint is made. There are two separate pieces of information for the printer.
Firstly the cutting lines and the perforation lines are placed on separate planes (spots and colors), which means that cutting and perforation are performed at different stages.
You should consider renaming the dieline layer in your Illustrator document so that it says “do not print”. This makes it clear and informs the manufacturer that it is intended for further processing. Designers and vector programs such as Illustrator use simple lines and shapes in packaging.
Create your own floorboards from scratch. This becomes easier with practice. The best way to practice is to find a box that corresponds to the dimensions in which you want to design your own packaging, disassemble it, and measure it. Use these measurements to create the floorboards.
Look at Package Examples
If you look around your home or office or you search online retailers, you can uncover some product packaging boxes.
Boxes come in many shapes but what you need to know is that they are available in two production formats: rigid setup boxes and folding product packaging boxes.
Setup boxes consist of two parts, an upper and a lower tray. They are expensive to manufacture and are often used for high-quality products, retail packaging, specialty confectionery, and gift boxes.
They can be a great choice if you want to make something special and don’t mind spending more on it. But remember that you can’t splash all of your budgets on the packaging. It must be affordable and of great quality.
The All-Important Box
Cereal boxes are one of the classic examples of the folding box format. They consist of a single template. This is created by folding a 2D design that is sent to the packaging manufacturer. This is then folded, laminated, cut, and finally glued together.
At this point, packaging biscuits are expensive, while set-up boxes have a much lower retail price. So you might want to get set-up boxes if you are packaging more expensive or sophisticated jewelry or shoes.
Once you have become familiar with the box format, you will find that there are many different ways to close the box.
By dissecting the boxes in your house, you can identify the type of closure on each box. Like sailor’s knots, there are dozens of types of locks.
Book-shaped boxes have a book-like shape with a hinged lid and are used to package custom software, medical and cosmetic products, limited editions, and sample products.
Pillow boxes are simple, curved box shapes with a curved closure that fits into candy or cosmetic packaging.
Showcases display a point-of-purchase item on a counter or shelf that features a variety of these designs.
Designing Your Box Shapes
Box shapes are easy to design with 2D templates, but designing custom product packaging with less angular objects such as tubes, bags, and wrap-around bottles can be a little trickier.
Accurate measurements and 3D modeling can be useful here to assess what a design will look like on a curved surface. Packaging is not limited to cartons, and there is a wide selection of packages for different purposes.
The bag design is easy to create but requires a logo design that repeats a continuous color on the bag. The label is 2D from start to finish and requires no more than length, width, and dimensions.
The first thing you have to think about is to make the purpose and brand of the product crystal clear. This is not a great or easy feat, but you can set out to create an amazing design with a few selected tips. You have to make sure that you design to appeal to the consumer.
If you want to learn more about the complete process for design, you can discover more here.
Talk to Consumers
Many designers get carried away designing packaging for what they buy, which will undoubtedly produce pretty results but will ultimately alienate your target market.
Talk to the customer. Get their knowledge of the target market for end-users, and research packaging in the same sector to get a sense of what colors, graphics, and fonts are appropriate for the product market.
Your Product Packaging Can Be Great
We deal every day with dozens of packaged products. Therefore, it takes a real emotional pull to get us to pay attention to these products and buy them.
Great design can take many forms. By placing emotion at the forefront of your product packaging, you will find that consumers are attracted to the product.
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To understand about Global Confectionery industry, Read here
