The Journey of a product packaging design

As easy as the journey seems to be, it is not at all easy in reality. Every process of a product packaging design requires very minute attention to detail and unavoidable redo that a designer and the team behind this whole process has to go through. Right from the client brief till the print of the package the job keeps on getting tougher.

Let’s peep into the humongous process of what goes into the printing of a package-:

Client briefing- The most important part where you need to understand the minds of your clients is during the briefing session. You need to catch up with the right feel of what and how your clients want. Only when you are clear about their way march on towards the next step of having a discussion or a brainstorming session with your talented set of minds i.e. your teammates.

Team discussion- After you are all set with understanding the brief from the client, throw your unique ideas and ask your mates about their opinion for the same. Make sure your approach towards the product packaging goes hand in hand with the client’s requirements. Make notes about the discussion

Competitor analysis- Always know your competitors. Seeing what they do, which approach they have used, etc. a proper plan of action based on how to do better and unique than them must be thought upon.

Target audience- While taking a brief, the foremost thing to keep in mind is the target audience. Whom are we making this packaging for? Who are the end-users? All these things must be kept into consideration before officially starting the process. Based on which is the product packaging decided and the implementation takes place. Even colours and other factors are looked upon based on the target group of the product.

Concept Curating– A well-built packaging concept speaks for its products. Along with the attractive aspect, the hygiene, durability and safety must also be tried and tested before the final output. The concept must have clarity while curating. It should very well gel in with the initial brief. Certain liberty can be taken provided how flexible is your client.

Brand guidelines- All the packaging design, ideas must be executed keeping the brand guidelines into consideration. There are many guidelines that a designer has to follow for making any kind of product packaging.

Sketching- After all the above steps are put into place, sketching of the idea begins to go on the papers of computer screens.

Print Material Check- Suggestions are always welcomed, but if the client doesn’t have any idea related to the material, the agency has to give them the options of which type of material they want and later how will our design look with that material is also checked.

Image Selection- For which image to appear on the packaging, a proper photo-shoot is required to make the visualization look enticing. If a normal non HD image is taken, the look won’t be attractive and there are high chances of people not wanting to purchase your product due to lack of look appeal.

Image editing- The most tedious task of all the work is image editing. That precision, that sharpness, that linearity needs to be pitch-perfect. Any mistake cannot be tolerated in the process of image editing.

All-inclusive Content- The content required for the front portion is way different from that of the backside. Front portion content is less and easy to manage. But the content that is placed at the backside needs a lot of time and accuracy. The pricing, translation in various languages, ingredients, etc. is very tiresome, time-consuming and monotonous at the same time. If all the content is mentioned in a single file, it becomes a bit easy for the designer to place it in the product packaging but if all the content is scattered there is a lot and a lot of hard work involved. So if clients give all the content in one go, it proves to be a boon for the designer and the work can be done much faster.

Element Creation- each element is pre-decided and curated that goes well with your initial idea. To create each element and align them together is a whole lot of process which consumes a lot of the designer’s time.

Font Selection- Depending upon what is the brand tone and image of the brand the fonts are selected. Sometimes it is the client that gives you their brand font but in some cases, they ask you to decide the font based on the brand tone.

Layout Options- After going through many layout designs, a few of them are shortlisted and later sent to the clients for approval. Once a layout is approved, the work will begin in full swing to how to make it look attractive.

Colour Scheme Finalisation– A certain colour scheme is followed by every brand, so the selection of colours doesn’t require much time but it has to dig deep and bring out the best possible colour scheme.

Final Content Changes- Even after all the finalisation and corrections, last-minute changes are always due. So another round of final content changes takes place before being sent for printing.

Final Alignment- The elements, the images, the content, all have to be set up in places that match your initial idea. But with a whole lot of time consumed in reaching this step, there are some impromptu changes that a designer takes the liberty of.

Corrections- The most tedious task after image editing is corrections. While talking about product packaging once all the content is accumulated and prepared, the corrections from the client’s side will be never-ending. To correct the minutest correction involves a lot of hard work and time. Patience from the designer is also one of the utmost things required to handles these loads of corrections.

Mock-up Creations- Once all the alignment is done, a mock-up is created which involves testing the product packaging of how it will look in terms of image, material, content, etc.

Re-working- All the loops and holes will be visible after the mock-up is thoroughly studied and then the reworking on correcting the errors will begin.

Client Inputs- After our team is satisfied with the outcome, we send the sample design to the client, to which they study and match every aspect with their requirements and accordingly give their inputs.

Client Satisfaction- After working on client’s inputs till they are finally satisfied, our job is incomplete. The reworking on the product packaging design sometimes goes up to days till they are fully satisfied.

Adding Cut Marks- Adding cut marks according to the folding of the packaging has to be done very precisely and with accuracy.

Print File Creation- A file where all the printing work is present has to be separately created and kept ready which involves all the raw as well as the final one. The feeling when finally after months and months of hard work the creation goes into printing is immeasurable.

Mailing File- Exporting all the printing packaging with mailing the file is an end to this huge process of creating, designing and printing the packaging.

After this whole process is all set into place the entire team takes a sigh of relief setting hope for no more changes into the final draft. This journey is evidence that will be visible in the form of lustrous product packaging giving its brand the new identity that it deserves.