Within the marketing industry many professionals know one of the main forces driving customers decisions when buying a product is packaging design. Ipsos research actually shows that 72% of Americans agree that a products’ packaging design influences their buying choices. Recent research by Ipsos also shows that product packaging can be one of the most effective marketing strategies as well.

Packaging Design and Kinds of Packaging

You may be asking yourself ‘what is packaging design’ and ‘are there different types of packaging?’ By definition,“Packaging design is the connection of form, structure, materials, color, imagery, typography, and regulatory information with ancillary design elements to make a product suitable for marketing.

Its primary objective is to create a vehicle that serves to contain, protect, transport, dispense, store, identify, and distinguish a product in the marketplace. Ultimately, the goal of a packaging design is to meet marketing objectives by distinctively communicating a consumer product's personality or function and generating a sale.” (Source Oreilly) In summary not only does packaging serve as a container and vehicle for your product, but it conveys a lot of information to your potential buyers.

This being said, it’s also important to know the different types of packaging and the importance of each. The first is primary packaging and may be what you think of when you hear ‘packaging design’, this is the packaging closest to the product itself. Primary packaging is also sometimes called consumer or retail packaging. For example, when you think of a canned drink, such as a soda or alcoholic beverage - the can and the label on the can are the primary packaging of that product. Secondary packaging is what carries multiple products with primary packaging. So for our example, the drink can be carried in retail stores in a 12 pack box, with the branding included. This secondary packaging helps with transportation (workers placing your product on the shelf and customers taking the product off the shelf and taking it home), as well as restocking, or the stock-keeping unit (SKU). Lastly is tertiary packaging, this is the outer packaging used when the product is in transit. For example, a sturdy cardboard box on a wooden palette could include twenty 12 pack boxes with secondary packaging. Tertiary packaging is rarely ever seen by consumers so it usually doesn’t include any branding or design.

Since packaging design can play such an important role in the marketing strategy Ι am going to walk you through the full process of packaging design.

1 - Preparations

The first step in packaging design is getting all the necessary info and elements of the product packaging. Necessary information and elements can include the text copy and technical requirements such as the size, dimensions, manufacturing details, etc. Usually this information is provided to the packaging designer beforehand, but if it is not, the designer may have to ask for this information.

Next in the preparation stage is meeting with the client to work on the project brief. It’s important to talk through everything possible to plan the project. In this step including information like the budget, stakeholders, project goals, and important milestones.

A great way to prepare for the visual aspect of your design is to reference any brand book or style guide available. It also helps to get to know the brand’s values as well as researching their online presence to see how they visually present information on other media. It is important, as the designer, to keep all designs in the same style as the existing brand book (unless a style change has been asked for by the client), heavily taking into consideration the values you can portray through the design.

Once you have all your research and information ready, now it's time to develop the visual concept. When starting your concept it is important to decide the packaging material and layers (any labels, lids, etc) before you start the actual design process. Knowing all this information and with the concept in your mind you’ll have a place to start.

2 - Package design

Dielines: The precise element of packaging layout is a dieline. What is a dieline? It’s a 2D illustration of the 3-d packaging shape this is used as a blueprint or a template for making use of art work and production. The dieline itself isn't typically imprinted on the very last product, it simply suggests the best format and courses for the production. For example, wherein to reduce traces, vicinity folds, or glue collectively your packaging.

Some components of the dielines might include:

Сut line or trim line – is the line that marks the place for the product to be trimmed to final size. Printing offices also use crop marks or trim marks on the corners of the file to show the printer exactly where to cut the paper.
Bleed line – refers to the space outside the cut line, which creates the safe zone (also known as live zone) for the artwork and ensures that there are no unprinted edges in your final packaging.
Crease line or fold line – is the line that marks the place where the future packaging should be folded, creating packaging inner and outer flaps and folds.
Perforated lines or Perf lines – are the lines marking where to place small cut-off dots on the final product. These lines enable you to intentionally tear the packaging parts one from another along the dotted line.
Interior lines – refers to the inner marks that show where to place openings, handles, holes, or windows.
Glue lines – are the lines that should be covered in glue or any other adhesive to create the final shape or form.

Some other things to keep in mind when creating packaging design:

Correct Color Mode. Make sure to use either CMYK or Pantone (not RGB) as they are the pigment color modes explicitly used in printing.
Information Hierarchy. Take into account the order in which the customer will receive the information and what is the first thing you want them to notice.
Layer Organization. The dieline should be on a separate layer from the artwork.
Orientation. Double-check if the images and text are facing the correct direction.
Embed Images and Outlined Text. Every image used in the design should be embedded, and every test field should be outlined so as not to miss any of the assets and fonts while transferring the design to another computer.

(Source)

3 - Artwork Approval

The artwork approval process can be one of the most tedious and stressful stages. Designers are concerned that their layout could be rejected, and customers are worried approximately now no longer noticing typos or mistakes and sending the defective layout to print. Therefore, to make all events happy, I suggest you take this level as seriously as you can, making sure all of your workflow and designs are correct.

If you are one of the lucky one that doesn’t suffer from extreme self-doubt, you can go ahead and send the finished design/s for approval. However, for all of the other folks, I’ve got some self-assessment questions that might help you calm your nerves before sending the artwork for client review.

Does your design meet all of the objectives set in the brief?
Is your design functional and versatile?
Is it clear from the first glance what the product is?
Does your design follow the brand guidelines?
How will it look in the store and next to the competition?

(Source)

These questions can also bring a new perspective into your design process. Who knows, maybe some questions could remind you of the aspect that has slipped through, and allows you to make those minor tweaks just before sending your artwork for review.

When you’re ready to send the finished packaging design/s to your client, think over the different channels you would like to receive feedback. The most requested ways to get feedback and design proofing is using messengers or emails. However, these are usually not the most efficient ways to collect comments and track the change requests. The most useful option would be to use specialized software created mainly to assist with accurate design approval.

4 - Prepress

With your artwork approved, you are now ready for the next stage of the packaging design process – prepress. During the prepress, the 2D version of your design is printed on an actual packaging, creating the prototype, the final 3D version, and you can see if any further design changes need to be made. This stage is a hybrid of the previous and next stages as it encompasses both packaging printing and artwork approval but on a smaller scale. Having said that, this in no way means that this stage is irrelevant.

“Imagine having created the packaging design that you are proud of. Your client absolutely loves it, the goals and deadlines are met, and you are ready to send it off to the printing office. You’ve checked everything several times: the file formats are correct, colors look amazing on the screen, the barcode is scanning properly. Basically, everything is in place. To save some time, you and the client decide to skip the prepress stage and send the design for mass production, and, oh no, the bleed is just two mm short, creating the white line on the side of your perfectly designed box. And now, you have hundreds of faulty boxes.” (Source)

This is why the prepress stage is so valuable, as it is the way for you to make sure that everything is precisely how you want it before the design goes to mass package production.

What are the things to keep in mind during prepress?

Color Reproduction and Press Profiles (ICC)
Alignment of the Dielines
Size, Patterns, and any other elements that might influence the final packaging look.

Keeep in mind, the position of a prepress technician exists in most, if not all of the printing offices. The prepress technician is a worker that checks print materials to ensure formatting, text, and color are correct before printing begins. They can guide you through the prepress process and assist you with any of the questions or problems you may have along the way.

5 - Printing

Even though this isn’t technically part of the design process as this step is handled by the printing office, I decided to include this stage to conclude the packaging process from start to finish nicely.

Once the printing office receives your final design (reviewed and proofed during the prepress), the process of creating an image carrier - a plate, cylinder, or other surface used to transfer ink in the form of the image to the paper (or other materials) - will begin. Usually, before the actual manufacturing of image carriers, the STEP file - a file format of highly precise 3D models that ensures that the dimensions are correct for the printing press- is created.

“After everything is set, some final printing tests (like checking if the software reads the file properly, if the printer is set up correctly and doesn’t have a malfunction, etc.) are done to get all of the aspects exactly right on the day of printing. Once several samples are printed and approved, mass package printing begins.” (Source)

Final Thoughts

Congratulations, you’ve gotten through the packaging design workflow!

This 5-stage packaging design process can hopefully, show you what to expect from the packaging process from start to finish. Preparation, package design, artwork approval, prepress, and package printing are just a few of the project’s milestones. Given its complexity, take time to thoroughly go through each of the stages and modify along the way according to your needs and experience.

If you’d like to see more on packaging design and how to market your packaging see my other blog post 7 ways to incorporate packaging in your marketing.

Everything you need to know about packaging design