Packaging Design - From Brief to Print

1. Class intro: [MUSIC] Hi and welcome to this Skillshare class on how to design your very own packaging. All the way from working with a client on the brief, to working with a printer and getting the finished product done. My name is Maulin and I worked as a brand and print designer for about seven years now. I really love packaging because it's such a great opportunity to be able to be really creative and come up not only with one product, but different lines of products and seasonal products, and you can use illustration, you can use layout, and there's so much great collaboration with both clients and the printer. Because there's a lot of moving parts, things like certifications and requirements, and also just a lot of things that you usually want to be able to fit in a beautiful way on the packaging. I want to take you through a couple of different stages in this course. The very first stage is looking at their requirements. We're going to be talking to our clients to find out exactly their dimensions of the product. Maybe get dye lines from the printer. We're going to talk about the goals of the product, the audience, and everything that we need to know to design this beautiful and effective packaging. Next up, we're going to go into sketching and we're going to work first in Procreate to sketch out different ideas, and then we're going to move on to finalize the design in Adobe Illustrator. Once we have the final design, we're going to put the ideas and concepts onto different beautiful mock-ups to show it to our client. Finally, we're going to use the finalized design to collaborate with a printer and create the design that is going to be the finished products. Along the way, I'm going to be sharing tips and tricks that I've learned to make sure that the packaging stands out on the shelf and stands out from competitors. The chest project for this class will be to create your very own label, so you can share a sketch or maybe even a finalized mock-up of the packaging that you're designing. I'm super excited to see everything that you're going to come up with, and I really look forward to seeing you in class. [MUSIC] 2. Requirements: [MUSIC] The absolute first thing that I really like to do when I design any type of packaging is just to really get to know the product that's going to be inside of the packaging. If it's a tea, I might like to try the tea to see how it tastes and get an idea of the experience of the tea. If it's a kid's product, maybe you'd like to see the product itself, look at the shapes of it, and how that's creating a mood or the type of branding that you want to tie into it. Getting to know the product and getting a bit more familiar both with the target audience of the product, and also it's important to think about how it fits in with the existing brand. You'll want to ask your client if this will be part of an existing line of products or if this is something that is going to be part of a completely new line. If it's part of something that's existing, usually you have a lot more parameters for the way it needs to look, the way it needs to function, the size of the packaging, and that type of stuff. If it's a completely new line, you, of course, have a lot more freedom and can create something that feels a lot more unique. You'll also want to find out if this is going to be a standalone product or if it's going to be what's called a skew, which is one product in a line of products. Sometimes, for example, you might be creating different flavors for the same products. Let's say you're doing a flavored water. Maybe you're doing lemon, strawberry, and pear, for example. Maybe those are different flavors that you need to consider how that's going to work on the packaging. You might have the same layout, but then you might have different ingredients to display on the packaging. Next up, we need to get all the information that needs to fit on the packaging from the clients. If you're collaborating with a copywriter or something like that, then your clients still needs to provide that information to the copywriter so they can write the actual copy or maybe your client is providing it. This is including things like the text. It might include logos, certifications, barcodes, QR codes, ingredient lists, and anything else that you need to have. For a lot of industries, especially when it comes to food products, there's a lot of information that will want to include that have to do with health and safety, so like allergens and ingredient lists. There's a lot of specific formatting that comes along with this. What's really important to do is you'll have to look at the different countries where the product is going to be sold, and you'll have to look at what those requirements are for that specific area. For example, in some countries like the UK, they have specific requirements around what's called a line of sight. Meaning that, for example, if you're looking at the ingredient list, you'll also need to at the same time be able to know how much of the product is in the packaging in the same eyesight or line of sight. That means that when you're looking at it and seeing that it's let's say 100 calories per 100 grams, you need to know, is it 500 grams or 200 grams in the package? That type of stuff is really important to get familiar with. There's a lot of information of that on basically like.gov, basic websites, or packaging labeling requirement websites for each country. Sometimes your client might already be super familiar with this and so you just need to ask what the requirements are, both in terms of what information needs to go there and what information needs to be put together or in different layouts. Next up, I think it's really important to also think about the competitors of this product. Because what we want to do is we want to be able to stand out on the shelf and be something that's really visible. Basically, stand out from the other products so that it's easy for someone to pick it for all the right reasons. This is also great because you'll be able to see what type of certifications that they're using, what type of information that they are choosing to highlight, and that can be a good indication of what the consumers are looking for. I like to start by looking at the competitors and their labeled designs and then also go to different stores where the product will be sold. You can ask your client where the product will be sold. This also work just as well if they are selling the product digitally because if they are selling the products in a digital store, there's technically still storefronts. You can just go to that website and go on the page where those products would be featured and you can look at what the designs look like there. This is something that is sometimes referred to as a shelf space analysis, so basically just looking at other products that are sharing the shelf space and trying to figure out how can we stand apart, how can we feature the most important information, and it will also give you a little bit of an idea of how much of the packaging face basically is actually visible when you see it on the shelf. Because you can put beautiful things all around the packaging, but there will be that face of the label that someone will see immediately. That's really important to get all the key information there. The last thing we want to do in this research stage is to ask the client for what's called dielines or basically just the requirements with specifications for, for example, the dimensions of the packaging, if there's different sides to it, how they are overlapping, there might be zones where you're not allowed to put designs because they will glue them together, for example. This is something that the printer will have. Either the client might have already gotten it from the printer and they can pass it on to you or they might just have, if it's a very simple label like a wraparound label on a bottle, they might just have the dimensions and maybe that it should be this much bleed, for example. Make sure that you have the exact dimensions and requirements and preferably a dieline document from the printer itself. Because this will help you figure out exactly what space you have to work with before you start sketching. Sometimes these documents can be a little bit complex and every printer is really different in my experience with how they choose to do it. Some have a PDF that you can literally just place the design in. Some of them want you to create a document with the right specifications. I think it's always a really good idea to get a direct contact person or at least the contact information from your client to the printer. Instead of it being a game of telephone between you and the client and the printer, if you have any questions, you can call up the printer, you can ask them questions, and you can look at the document together to figure out, this will be upside down and this will be folded over or whatever the requirements are just so that it's super clear before you start designing. 3. Sketching your ideas: [MUSIC] Great. Now that we know all the requirements for the project, what we're going to do is we're going to start just looking at the space that we have to work with and we're going to start blocking out the information that we want to include. The one that I'm going to be sketching on today is a drink packaging. It's going to be basically a wraparound label with a little bit of space all around the edges as a safe zone where we don't want to be printing. There's going to be a zone on the left-hand side, which is basically where it's going to be glued over. We want to keep that empty as well. The first thing I'd like to do is just to open Procreate where I'm sketching. But you could do this on paper or in any other program that you feel comfortable with. I like to not work straight in Adobe Illustrator just because I feel like I'm trying to make it too perfect right away. I'm basically trying to just get a rough sketch of all the layouts and what's going to look good. I think it's good to work at scale because if you start working in a document that's way bigger, then you might try to fit in a lot more stuff than can actually work on the scale that you're working out. Try to keep it roughly at the dimensions that you'll want to actually have the final design in. I just tried to roughly put out things like, where is the logo going to go, what is the field of view, and what information can fit when you see on the shelf. Then I like to put in any information of things like the product name or it could be the flavor of the products. I like to add in any information that the client has asked to have on the front first. Once I've done the front of the label, then I can start to block out information for things like ingredients or instructions or any other information that you want to put more on the back of the label. We also want to make sure that we're putting space for things like barcodes and QR codes and social media. Most products also require you to put the address of the company, so that if they have questions about the product, they can contact the company. That's also something that we'll want to make sure we leave space for. In some cases, your client might also have information that's a little bit more about their business or their mission or something a bit quirky to build personality. In that case, you also need to block out space for this. I always like to try a couple of different formats and a couple of different concepts just to see how we can resolve different things. One of my favorite things to do is once you know where all the information can fit, we can start to think about ways to bring in the brand personality and the feeling of the flavors or the product itself. That's a way that we can bring, for example, instead of just having a straight up bad we and could make like a leaf into a badge, or we could create these little interactions that just feel a bit more unique and that bring a lot of personality to the packaging. This is also a great stage to put things like if you have a limited edition and people will be either stamping or signing the packaging for which product it is, like one out of 100 or something like that. It's also a good idea to really start thinking about if there's anything that you'll want to bring out as a feature of the product. Maybe it's really healthy. Maybe it is waterproof. Maybe you have something else that you'll want to highlight on the front of the packaging. As we're doing this, we'll want to really keep in mind the parameters of the research that we did. Basically, the shelf space analysis and talking to the client about what's important for them. For this design, I'm creating two different layouts. For one of them, the illustration is a lot more complex and we have a lot more detail in it. That means that the graphics and the information needs to be spaced a little bit differently. One of them, we're going to be having a very clean, simple, big graphic shapes of the fruit and the leaves. This is just to start bringing in some slightly different layouts in the packaging and play around with the design and the options. Great. Now that we have the different sketches, my next step is always to check with a client and see which of the sketches that they prefer. Sometimes it can be difficult for clients to visualize what the finished product is going to look like. But sometimes it can just be a good idea to get their gut reaction or a little bit of feedback before you move forward and put all that work into creating this custom illustration or custom packaging. I think it can be a good idea to check with your clients on the sketching stage. 4. Creating your design: Great. Now that we have our sketches from procreate or if you have it on paper, we're going to bring it into Illustrator and start building out the finalized design. Depending on the deadlines and the parameters that you've got from the printer, you might be either opening a PDF document in Adobe Illustrator or you might be just setting up your document in Illustrator with the correct print settings, and of course we want to make sure that we keep it CMYK color profile. RGB, is used for digital and CMYK is used for print. That's really important because the colors will appear a little bit different in CMYK. They will always be a little bit less saturated compared to RGB. This is something that, of course, it's really sad if you're creating a design, and you're showing it to the client and it's designed in RGB and then you have to show them a design that's altered afterwards, after they approved it. Make sure you're working in the right color settings to begin with. When I have this, I start to do all of the text boxes to start with, because for me it's nice to make sure that I'm able to put the texts in the correct size, and fit everything as it was intending it to. Sometimes clients have an idea of a lot of texts, and we might have to get back to them and say that it's too much and it won't fit the design. This is because most countries have packaging requirements for inclusivity, which is great. A lot of the times the texts has to be at least four millimeters tall, and of course it's always better if it's a little bit bigger just to make sure that nothing is too small. This is typically only applying to crucial information. If you're adding anything that is, let's say company information about their mission or something that isn't required information on packaging, you might be able to get away with a smaller texts. But it's always a good idea, I think, to start adding in the text and making sure that it's not too small. You'll also want to make sure you have plenty of space for things like QR codes and barcodes. With barcodes, you can actually have a lot of fun, but it's important to follow some good standards. Basically with barcodes, what you'll want to think about is you'll need to have that white background all the time or you're able to remove that as long as it's a high contrast between the black usually barcode and the background. The important thing for a barcode is that spacing between the different lines. Sometimes you might see examples of how the barcode shape is changed. Maybe it looks like a mountain or something at the top. Usually the shape itself can be altered a little bit as long as the spacing between those lines is consistent because that's what the reader is checking in the barcode. You'll also want to make sure that the numbers that you have are clear to read and that they are not being obstructed by any part of your design or being placed on something where it becomes really low contrast. The same thing goes for a QR code. With a QR code, you really want to keep that white boundary around it, and you'll really want to make sure that the different corners. If you look at a QR code, you have those bigger corners, those blocks needs to be intact. QR codes are a little bit more robust in my experience than a barcode. But you still want to make sure both that you're testing it, that your client is testing that it's working, and that you're not messing with the contrast or the minimum sizing too much. Great. Once we have all of this information put in, then we can start putting in our designs, and playing around with color and making sure that everything is working. We really want to keep in mind here again, I like to put a little bit of some different guides up so that I can see which part of the design will be visible on the shelf. Most of the time, let's say you have a square packaging, you have the front of the label, and then you have the sides. You want to keep in mind what is going to be visible on the front. If it's a wraparound label, you need to really think about how much of it is going to be visible as it's wrapping around. You might have to test that on a bottle and you might have to measure it if your client has finished bottle. On some guidelines, you'll also have those different specifications, and they've already put in grids and guides, which is super helpful. Sometimes if you have different products in the same line, like maybe you're designing. In this case, we have two flavors, strawberry and lemon and lime. Then I like to also design them basically in parallel. Maybe I do the complete layout first, and then I transfer that and just design the elements that are changing, changing the colors and the ingredients that are going to be on the other packaging. That way you're making sure that you're getting a really consistent look, and I'd like to put them next to each other when I'm testing out different colors just to make sure that not only do they look really nice, stand alone, but they also look really nice side-by-side on shelf. Something that is usually really important is to adhere to the brand guide regarding the logo of the company. For example, you might want to do a really dark package design and then how the logo in white. If that's not something that is clear that the client is allowing in their brand guide, you want just want to check with them to make sure that they don't have anything against the logo being used in white, for example. The next step, once you have your finished design and you're happy with the color, the layout illustration, everything you're including is to put on a mockup and to show it to the client for sign-off. I always like to show a basically the complete flat version where you have all of the delights written out, and everything, but that's really good for the client to prove it. But I think it's really important to have it on a mockup where they can really feel how the product is going to look at the end. I don't think it's a good idea to only show the mockup because then there might be some confusion around what the back looks like or just the complete overall layout. I really like to include both. When it comes to mockups, there are so many great places that do really common product mockups as you can go to places like yellow images, Creative Market, Envato Elements for example, they all have really great mockups. But if you can't find one, you can either create your own by, for example, taking a picture of the products bottle or products packaging that you're going to be using, and then using Photoshop to put that design onto it. If that feels too complicated, what you can do is also through sites like yellow images, if you have a subscription, you can actually ask them to create a mockup specifically for you. Then what you'll do is you'll send a picture of the container that the packaging will be on and you'll show them where the labor will go. If it's on the whole packaging, then that's easy. If it's just part of it like a wraparound label, you'll need to give them those specifications. Then they can create a mockup for you that you can just put on your design too. This is great, especially if you want to have effects like water drops or anything else like that, that you want to make part of your mockup to make it feel more realistic or more on rent. 5. Exporting for print: [MUSIC] Now your client has approved your design, and you're finished, and you're ready to export it. What I'd like to do is just to start by checking with the printer how they want the document prepared. Some people want to have the color profiles included, some people just care about the bleed being correct, some people have very specific requirements, but overall it's usually that you'll prepare something like a PDF that's high-quality print settings exported from Adobe Illustrator. You'll basically go ''File'' and then you'll go ''Save As,'' and then you'll choose the option ''Adobe PDF,'' and then you'll save it. Then you will put here ''High-quality print.'' There's a lot of different options and settings that you can do, but I like to do the Keep illustrator editing capabilities. You'll also want to make sure that if you have any images in the document, they are properly embedded. If you do any typefaces which [LAUGHTER] of course you're going to be doing texts and things like that, you'll want to make sure that the text is expanded, which means that if the printer opens the document they will not have to have those different typefaces, because otherwise it will start being default typefaces or start messing with your design in general. For all the typefaces, and all the line work, and things like that you, if have underscores, or things, or line icons, make sure you are expanding everything like that, and then make sure you're embedding all the different photos. As you're exporting the document, I think it's also really important to check the little summary because that area will show you if there are any warnings. In the Warnings it could for example tell you that the document is being exported with low resolution images, which then is something that you'll need to go and check up on your settings. It's just a good place to catch little things in this little Boarding section. Once you prepared this document according to the printers requirements, I think it's always a good idea to first send it to the printer and the client together in an email and make sure that warn your client assigning off on the design. They have proofread it and they have checked that everything is just as they like it. You also want to make sure that the printer is either providing some press proof. Basically making sure that they are showing that this is what the product will or the packaging would look like once it's printed, and that you have a full understanding from everyone involved that this is correct and this is how you're intending it to be. There can sometimes be a little confusions or maybe something that you thought was going to be turned horizontally, should be turned vertically, or upside down, or something, and so. It can also be a good idea to just check those things together and make sure everyone's on the same pitch. I highly recommend doing something about your contract for this, and this is something that has made me feel a lot calmer even though we never had to use it. That's just saying that when there's printing involved if the client has signed off on the design, once that is all done then you're not responsible for what's going on in the printing process. If the printer makes a mistake, if there's some miscommunication once your client has signed off on the design, maybe they made a spelling mistake that you didn't catch and they didn't catch but they signed off on it, it's not on you to let us say compensate them for that mistake and printing. I think it's a good class to have in your contract that once your client has signed off on the design; that's it, your work is done, and that's someone else's responsibility. 6. Class project: [MUSIC] Amazing. That was quite a lot of information, but I hope that you're really excited to be designing packaging and that you're excited to get started on the class project. The class project is for you to either provide a sketch or maybe even a full mock-up of your own packaging design. You can either do something that you're doing for a client project or just something that you're doing as a personal project. It can be any product, any type of packaging, whatever you're excited to work on. If you have any questions at all, I always answer the comments and the questions, so you can join in the discussion tab below. I'm really excited to see your projects and your package designs. Thank you so much for taking part in this class and good luck with your projects.