Packaging design is the first step in the production of paper containers and the basis of the entire production. Its contents have been changing with the change of packaging functions, and as the market competition has intensified, the profits of companies have continuously decreased, and the content of design work has become more and more abundant. At the same time, it has become increasingly important.
The overall solution for product packaging design
Design is based on a certain idea of the shape, decoration, color to be properly handled, to cause people's beauty and attention to the conscious creation and operational performance.
The concept and meaning of packaging design vary with the research and service targets. Broadly speaking, product packaging design is designed for three major functions of packaging—protecting products, facilitating use, and promoting sales. Design work should include product protection design (such as buffer packaging design, moisture-proof and other functional packaging design), structure and process design (such as collection packaging, package design, etc.) and package product design and decoration design. From a narrow sense, the packaging design only includes the three main contents of packaging structure, modeling and decoration design, but the three are not simply stacked and added, but an organic combination of mutual connection and interaction.
In recent years, the packaging design widely accepted by the packaging industry is a product-oriented packaging solution, which generally includes the analysis of the characteristics of the packaged goods and packaging requirements, the analysis of product circulation environment, the positioning of packaging design, and the determination of packaging materials and packaging forms. Product packaging and decoration, packaging promotion, packaging sample production and evaluation, and product packaging process and equipment determination. It can be seen that the overall solution for product packaging essentially includes the meaning of generalized packaging design, and also involves other areas of content.
Packaging design features
The characteristics of packaging design are mainly reflected in practicality, aesthetics, economy, originality and relevance. Practicality is one of the basic attributes of design. It mainly considers the function and function of the product. It can be embodied through the materials, structures, shapes, and patterns of the package. Different functions and functions of commodities have different requirements for the practicality of packaging design. The aesthetic requirements combine various factors to design a packaging product design that conforms to the characteristics of the times, national characteristics, and aesthetics. Economic efficiency is the greatest product effect with the least cost. Originality is to be good at unconventionalism, not to be separated from society and times, and to contain new creations in the superficial form. Each of the above points has its own independence and correlation. It has important guiding significance for design work and requires full consideration when designing.
Color box color box design principle
Commodity packaging is mainly divided into two major categories: transportation packaging and sales packaging. Sales packages are packages that are directly met and used by consumers. In addition to the use of performance, it should also be very artistic, and its shape and structural design should meet the "scientific, aesthetic, and marketable" requirements. When designing, it is necessary to consider the scientific and reasonable problems in the structure, but also to take into account the appearance of the design and decoration. The excellent packaging design and structural design can not only accommodate and protect the goods, beautify the goods and promote the sales of the goods, but also should be easy to carry, use, display and sell.
When designing, it should first meet its overall design requirements. Second, it should take into account the relationship between structural design, modeling design, and interior design. That is, the structural design must be based on the characteristics of the packaged product, environmental factors, and user requirements. Reasonably design the carton cover, box bottom, adhesive bracts, dust mites and other components. It is necessary to meet the principle of overall design, and should also be coordinated with the requirements of modeling and decorating design; modeling and decorating design should emphasize the display display of packaging from the aesthetic point of view. In addition, size and strength design are also an important part of carton carton design. It affects not only the appearance of the product, but also the production and distribution costs.
Structural design
Modeling and structural design are an important part of commodity packaging. The design of packaging structure is based on the actual conditions of packaging and production, and based on scientific principles, the design of the packaging's exterior structure and internal accessories is carried out. The design must ensure that the structure has enough strength, hardness and ability to resist other environments. It must be considered from two points. First, the primary function of protecting the product, and secondly, it must meet the important characteristics of modern packaging, such as transportation and processing characteristics.
Qualified cartons start with the right structural design. Designers must not only truly understand the customer's intentions, but also be familiar with the post-processing technology. Only in this way can the customer's intentions be converted into qualified products, and the subsequent processing of the products can be ensured. Designers must understand the nature, shape, size, and weight of the contents before the design begins; the arrangement, transport, and stacking methods of the contents; the storage environment, transportation routes, and timing, as well as the carton box type and manufacturing materials.
After determining the various types of information, it is also important to understand whether the cartons required for the design focus on either transport carts or sales cartons. The sales cartons belong to the category of commercial packaging, focusing on the appearance of the carton, and the need to consider the printing process in the design. The transport type carton belongs to the category of industrial packaging. It is more necessary to consider the requirements of the carton such as pressure resistance and shock resistance, and to design openings and die-cutting positions without affecting its strength. Because of its repeated use, it also needs to consider the efficiency of packing and the production efficiency of the factory. When the carton box type required for design is determined, the design work can be started. The following problems must be paid attention to when designing.
Intensity problem: The design of 楞 type is the primary content of strength design. There are single and multiple layers of corrugated cardboard. Each type of A, B, and C can be selected according to the pre-design understanding. When exporting a carton, when designing a box type, the weather and transportation conditions during transportation must be taken into account. As a large commodity package, corrugated cartons are designed to be as simple as possible, easy to handle, and avoid die-cutting to avoid excessive die-cutting process to reduce the overall performance of the carton and to make the process too complicated. At the same time, it is also necessary to consider the convenience of packing, and some also need to consider factors such as mechanical packing. According to the local transportation and handling conditions, humanized designs such as handle holes can be added to the larger packaging boxes to facilitate handling.
Material selection: The choice of carton material is an important part of strength design. It not only affects the printing effect, but also affects the physical properties of the corrugated carton after molding. There is a close relationship between the moisture content of the paper and the strength of the carton. When carton matching, take into account different weather conditions. When the export cartons are being dispensed, the raw paper must have higher physical properties. At the same time, the cardboard produced must also meet the requirements for physical properties such as burst resistance, edge pressure, and adhesion.
An important reason why cartons and cartons are favored is their green advantages. The use of consumables such as inks, additives, and polishes, the recycling performance of paperboard or composite board itself, and waste disposal must comply with environmental requirements. When packaging food, medicine or children's toys, whether it meets the requirements for hygiene, health and safety is a very important issue. Of course, as a product package for export, it is necessary to consider the relevant laws and regulations of the destination country.
Dimensions: When designing the size of corrugated boxes, in addition to setting the length, width and height of the corrugated boxes reasonably according to the contents, consideration should also be given to combining different types of containers in order to make full use of the space of the containers and avoid the products during transportation. The waste of space is also conducive to the safety of product transportation.
Printing process issues: Design work should also consider the differences between different printing processes. The printing methods commonly used in corrugated cartons in China include offset printing, flexo printing, and gravure printing. Changes in the printing method directly affect other processes, and even printed materials have to be changed. For example, coated white paper is selected, and it is difficult to print with aqueous ink flexographic printing. According to the characteristics of different printing methods and other aspects of the design of a comprehensive consideration of the process plan. If you use the current flexo printing process of carton carton, you should pay attention to layout issues.
When designing fine lines, small texts, and patterns with halftone dots, a flexo should not be arranged on a single page with a large area full of prints. Because the full version requires a large amount of printing pressure, it is easy to deform small texts and patterns. The printed products are not clear and blurry. There are quality problems such as broken lines, falling off of typeface strokes, missing dots, etc., and it will accelerate wear or crush the printing plate. If you must design on a printing plate, then you can not use the same exposure time for the full version of the field and small graphic text to expose, need to extend the exposure time to improve the subtle graphics at the plate hardness and resistance to force.
Carton printing generally has more typographic plates. When imposition, the plate cannot be cut too loose. It is best to make the same color plate as a whole. Care must be taken when unavoidable stencils and small-scale gluing are applied. Otherwise, in the production process, due to the small and fragmented plates, the stencils are not firmly bonded, resulting in damage and loss during the printing process. In addition, when affixing, maintaining, or replacing small pieces or fine patterns or text printing plates, do not pull them hard to prevent damage or tearing.
In order to overcome the unevenness of the cardboard surface, rough, etc., the printing plate should be wear-resistant, strong impact resistance, moderate hardness, good elasticity after pressing, uniform ink, and uniform thickness. According to the pattern, the text, the size of the line and the corrugated board material, the layout, hardness requirements, and production methods of the flexo plate should be changed accordingly. When the quality of corrugated board is poor and the full-printing solid bottom color is printed, a thicker, softer, softer version is selected; corrugated board is of good quality, and when printing fine patterns, small prints, and cable screens, high hardness and thin thickness are used. Printing resin plate.
Corrugated board, if the surface is uneven, warping, the printing surface off the powder, pull the hair, sand and other problems in the paper, will cause paste version, pressure injury, wear or damage flexo resin version, shorten the life of the printing plate. Therefore, the quality of the base paper should be strictly controlled during the production of corrugated cardboard.
Interior design
The external decorating effect of carton products is playing an increasingly important role in the marketing of products. It can be said that excellent packaging design is an important part of building marketing power and enhancing brand image. Decoration design is the content of packaging visual design. It refers to the surface design of the packaging, including how to select colors, graphics, text, brand names, and barcodes to achieve the goal of beautifying and promoting the products. For the design of sales-type carton packs, the principle of “conspicuousness, understanding, goodwill” should be followed.
Eye-catching: It refers to the combination of novel and unique shapes, colorful colors, beautiful and delicate patterns, so that consumers will have a strong interest when they see it.
The color design of packaging and decorating, attached to graphics, text and texture, not only requires beauty, generousness, satisfies people's perfect requirements, but also is highly coordinated with people's psychological feelings. Color beauty is the easiest for people to feel and is the first factor in determining sales. Long-term practice has proven that red, blue, white, and black are the four major sales colors. When used as a color for sales, consumers can feel goodwill and interest. The pattern should be combined with the color to set off the goods, fully display the characteristics of the brand trademark, and enable the consumer to immediately identify the product from the trademark and the overall packaged pattern.
In the packaging and decorating design of the carton, designers should fully consider the abstract expression rules of different colors, so that the colors can better reflect the attributes of the goods, inspire consumers' desire to purchase, and meet the needs of different levels of consumption in the target market. We must pay attention to the collocation of cold and warm colors, the reconciliation, contrasting, and segmentation of colors, and ultimately harmonize them into the entire package. In short, pay attention to the feeling of color in the carton packaging and decoration design, rationally apply the theory of color psychology, reflect the characteristics of the package.
The unique styling is mainly reflected by the heterogeneous structure, which requires the design of functional structures (such as handles, hand-held holes or vents, adhesive flaps for automatic folding cartons, etc.), and feature structures (such as cut corners, hollows, feet, etc.). And the appearance of the structure (such as non-columnar, non-planar structure) and other special structural elements to achieve, so that they can meet the variety of packaging style, beautiful appearance, ingenious structure, variety of forms, can attract the attention of consumers.
Understanding: It means that the package truly conveys the image of the product and enables consumers to accurately understand the product through the package. For carton and carton packaging, you can display contents, draw product graphics, print product photos, and provide simple text instructions to transfer contents information by opening the window to the contents of the packaging container. Accurately communicating product information also requires that the packaging be adapted to the grade of the product, and that masking or exaggerating the quality and functionality of the product is a failure.
Good impression: refers to the packaging of the shape, color, pattern, texture to cause people's favorite emotions. The goodwill comes from two aspects. The first is the practical aspect, that is, whether packaging can meet the needs of consumers in all aspects and provide convenience. Goodwill also comes directly from the packaging's sense of shape, color, pattern, and texture. This is a comprehensive psychological effect that is closely related to individuals and their environment. For example, women and men like different colors, and each nation has different favorite colors. Design should combine color with emotion, folklore, and context.
Post-order inspection
After the designer hands over the finished artwork to the sampler, he or she needs to carefully check the designed product. If the conditions permit, the designer should directly participate in the proofing so as to improve the design of the product in time, especially in the details of the improvement. After the sample draft is printed, it will be modified and finalized. For transport packaging, relevant dynamic tests need to be done to check if their strength meets the requirements. For sales packaging, the external decoration of the product should also be carefully observed. First of all, from a few meters away, see if the characteristics of the package are obvious, and whether its color is reasonable. After that, look closely to see if the brand name of the packaging is obvious and whether the color is concise and clear, and whether the key information is transmitted clearly. And then from the details to see if there are flaws and problems.
The design of color box color box has its main content in each aspect, and they are related to each other. A good designer must not only have a flat design idea but also be familiar with the entire process of product packaging. He must be fully aware of the nature of the product, the structure of the container, and other aspects related to the success or failure of product sales. The product must be designed. Accepted and accepted by customers, markets. This requires designers not only to master the theoretical knowledge of buffer packaging design, but also to understand the company's entire production process, especially the production of the carton after the order, in addition to the necessary aesthetic and cultural cultivation. Only in all aspects are considered comprehensively, and scientific design methods guide practice in order to obtain high quality products.
