by Marizol Ulizio
Snippet:
You may have seen beautiful packaging with luxurious reflective lettering, embossed graphics for a fragrance or beauty & bath product. All of these embellishments inhibit an ideal production time and may delay the delivery of the packaging execution and final project completion. Sometimes by six months to a year. By that time, your particular goods may not be in demand, or replaced by other goods in the marketplace. Depending on your business, customers, clients, and retailers plus the demand of your goods, this may or may not be a viable choice to grow or maintain the health of your business. A delay will add to your overhead costs. Unless you have a contract and can afford projects with longer lead times, packaging of this nature with complicated embellishments may or may not work for you.
The faster the production runs, the faster you can satisfy your customers, get your goods out into the marketplace and stay competitive.
There is a difference between mass-producing your packaging and making your packaging mass-producible. Anyone can place an order with a supplier overseas for 5,000 tuck boxes with gold lettering. Let’s delve into some traits and qualities that I believe slow the execution time.
What may not make your packaging mass-producible and causes possible delays:
Common/Popular Embellishments
-Box Labels
-Multiple Colors + Multiple Graphics
-Liquid Foil Printing
-Hot Stamping
-Embossing
-Raised Ink
-Spot UV
Design Files
-Poor Execution of Artwork Files
Packaging Structures or Materials that Require Longer Times to Execute
-Rigid Gift Boxes
-Corrugated Cardboard
-Multi-Ply Paperboard
-Glued Boxes
-Plastic Product Molds
Advantages of Faster Production Times
-Holiday Rush
-Events
-Repeat Customers
-Prospective Retailers
What may make your packaging mass-producible and speeds up production time:
The Printing Aspects
-One to Three Colors
-Sound Artwork Files
Mass-Producible Materials
-Uncoated
-Single Ply
The Structure
-Minimal Surface Area
-Self-Assembly
-Easy to Store
-Collapsible
-Easy to Assemble
Keep your packaging on the mass-producible side of things without adding to your overhead costs. Maintain machine hours at a minimum as well as hand labor.
Yes, I know how beautiful and elevated embellished packaging looks and its appeal to potential retailers is, but if you can keep your packaging easy to produce, you can speed up your production side and deliver your goods faster–an end goal necessary to grow. If you choose mass-producible packaging, focus on the quality of your goods. Place an emphasis on the product itself. As long as the quality of your product is not compromised, you can get away with simple packaging without the extra embellishments and longer turnaround times that may not yet be necessary unless your product has piqued the interest of a retailer or investor who sees the growth and potential on both sides.
Make a considerate choice that your customers will recognize and appreciate.
Common embellishments in packaging design may run the risk of appearing cookie-cutter and lack thoughtfulness. The more thoughtful your overrall packaging looks, the more meaning and perceived value it will deliver to the overall end user. Packaging is more than looking beautiful, alluring or attractive: it tells a story. Your story holds more weight than an overcomplicated overembellished packaging design yearning for atttention and sales. How you communicate a story through the tool of packaging design will afford your product a distinguishable memorable position in the marketplace relevant to gain consumer trustworthiness and distinctiveness.
You may be thinking: mass-producible cannot equate to thoughtfulness. In terms of the thought and care of your design, your mass-producible packaging can create a meaningful experience especially when eco-friendly materials are sourced. For example, choose raw plant-based materials in the paper industry that include pulp or natural non-recycled fibers. Consider linen or sugarcane, which is tree-free. These materials compared to recycled basic ones such as trendy pearlescent stock, although more sustainable with less energy to produce, contain metal oxides that subtly smear on skin and surfaces. These simple considerations show the care you took to effectively illustrate the quality of your product to your customers.