Packaging design is the first step in the production of paper containers and the foundation of the entire production. Its content changes constantly with the transformation of packaging functions, and as market competition intensifies, corporate profits continue to decrease, and the design work content becomes more and more rich and becomes more and more important.
Total solution for product packaging design
The design is based on a certain idea to properly deal with the shape, decoration and color, and is a conscious creation and operational performance to attract people's beauty and attention.
The concept and meaning of packaging design vary with the research and service targets. Broadly speaking, the packaging design of products is a design activity aimed at three major functions of packaging-protecting products, convenient use, and promoting sales. The 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 collective packaging, combined packaging design, etc.) and packaging product design and decoration design. In a narrow sense, packaging design only includes the three main contents of packaging structure, shape and decoration design, but the three are not simple stacking and addition, but an organic combination of interconnection and interaction.
In recent years, the packaging design widely recognized by the packaging industry is a product-oriented overall packaging solution, which generally includes the analysis of the characteristics and packaging requirements of the packaged product, the analysis of the product circulation environment, the positioning of the packaging design, the determination of the packaging materials and packaging forms, Product packaging and decoration, packaging promotion, packaging sample production and evaluation, and product packaging technology and equipment determination. It can be seen that the overall solution of product packaging essentially includes the connotation of generalized packaging design, and also involves content in other fields.
Characteristics of packaging design
The characteristics of packaging design are mainly reflected in practicality, aesthetics, economy, originality and relevance. Practicability is one of the basic attributes of design, mainly considering the function and function of the product, which can be reflected by the packaging material, structure, shape and pattern. The functions and functions of commodities are different, and the requirements for the practicality of packaging design are also different. Aesthetic requirements require combining various factors to design a packaging product design that meets the characteristics of the times, national characteristics, and outstanding aesthetics. Economic efficiency is to obtain the maximum product effect with the least cost. Originality is to be good at setting new ideas and innovations without breaking away from society and the times. It contains new creations in the superficial ordinary form. Each of the above points has its own independence and interrelationship, which has important guiding significance for the design work, and requires full consideration when designing. [next]
Color box design principles
Commodity packaging is mainly divided into two categories: transportation packaging and sales packaging. Sales packaging is packaging that directly meets and uses with consumers. In addition to the performance, it should also have a strong artistry, and its shape and structural design should meet the requirements of "scientific, beautiful, and marketable". When designing, we must consider not only the scientific and reasonable problems in structure, but also the beauty in shape and decoration. Excellent packaging styling and structural design can not only accommodate and protect commodities, beautify commodities, and promote the sale of commodities, but also be easy to carry, use, display and transport.
When designing, first of all, it should meet its overall design requirements, and secondly, it should take into account the relationship between structural design, modeling design and decoration design, that is, the structural design should be based on the characteristics of the packaged product, environmental factors and user requirements. Reasonably design the carton cover, bottom, adhesive flaps, dust flaps and other components. Not only to meet the principles of overall design, but also to coordinate with the requirements of modeling and decoration design; modeling and decoration design, from the aesthetic point of view, emphasize the display and display of packaging. In addition, the size and strength design is also an important link in the design of carton boxes. It not only affects the appearance quality of products, but also relates to production and circulation costs.
Structural design
Modeling and structural design are an important part of commodity packaging. The packaging structure design is based on the actual conditions of packaging and production, and the design of the packaging structure and internal accessories based on scientific principles. The design must ensure that the structure has sufficient strength, hardness and resistance to other environments. Two points must be considered. One is to protect the primary function of the product, and the other is to meet the important characteristics of modern packaging, such as transportation and processing characteristics.
Qualified carton products start with the correct structural design. Designers must not only truly understand the customer ’s intentions, but also be familiar with the subsequent 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 smoothly. The designer should understand the nature, shape, size and weight of the contents before the start of the design; the arrangement, transportation and stacking methods of the contents; storage environment, transportation route and time, carton box type and production materials and other information.
After determining all kinds of information, it is also necessary to know whether the carton required for the design is focused on transport type or sales type. Sales carton belongs to the category of commercial packaging, focusing on the appearance of the carton, and the design needs to consider the printing process requirements. Transport type carton belongs to the category of industrial packaging, more needs to consider the carton's pressure resistance, shockproof and other requirements, and the opening and die cutting position should be designed on the premise of not affecting its strength. Because of its repeated use, it is necessary 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 begin, and the following issues must be noted when designing.
Strength problem: The corrugated design is the primary content of strength design. There are single corrugated and multi-layer corrugated cardboard. Each layer has A, B, and C corrugated types to choose from. Arrangement is based on the understanding before design. When designing the box shape of the exported carton, the weather and transportation conditions during transportation must be considered. As packaging for large items, corrugated boxes should be designed as simple as possible, easy to handle, avoid die cutting, avoid excessive die cutting process to reduce the overall performance of the carton, and make the process too complicated. At the same time, it is 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 larger boxes to facilitate handling.
Material selection: The selection of carton material is an important part of the strength design. It not only affects the printing effect, but also affects the physical properties of the corrugated carton after molding. For example, there is a close relationship between the moisture content of the paper and the strength of the carton. When distributing paper in cartons, different weather conditions should be considered. When the export carton is equipped with paper, the raw paper must have higher physical properties. At the same time, the paperboard produced must also meet the physical properties such as burst resistance, edge pressure, and adhesion. [next]
An important reason why cartons and cartons are favored is their advantages in environmental protection. The use of consumables such as inks, additives, and glazing agents, the recycling performance of the cardboard or composite cardboard itself, and the disposal of waste products must meet environmental requirements. When packaging food, medicine or children's toys, whether it meets the requirements of hygiene, health and safety is a very noteworthy question. Of course, as the packaging of exported goods, the relevant laws and regulations of the destination country must be considered.
Size: When designing the size of the corrugated box, in addition to the reasonable setting of the length, width and height ratio of the corrugated box according to the contents, it should also consider combining with different container types to make full use of the container space and avoid the product during the transportation The waste of medium space is also conducive to the safety of product transportation.
Printing process issues: The design work should also consider the differences between different printing processes. The printing methods commonly used in domestic corrugated cardboard boxes are offset printing, flexo printing, and gravure printing. Changes in printing methods directly affect other processes, even printing materials. For example, if you choose to coat whiteboard, flexographic printing with water-based ink is difficult to print. According to the characteristics of different printing methods and other aspects of the design, the process plan can be considered comprehensively. If you use the flexo printing process that is currently popular in carton boxes, you must pay attention to the layout of the layout.
When designing thin lines, small text, and dotted patterns, flexo plates should not be arranged on the same layout as a large-area full plate. Because full printing requires greater printing pressure on the ground, it is easy to deform small text and patterns, printed products are fuzzy and unclear, quality problems such as broken lines, font strokes falling off, dot loss, etc., and will accelerate wear and tear or damage the printing plate. If it must be designed on a printing plate, then the full exposure of the field and small graphics cannot be exposed with the same exposure time. It is necessary to extend the exposure time to improve the hardness and durability of the printing plate at the fine graphics.
Carton printing generally has more color plates, and the plates cannot be cut too loosely during imposition. It is better to make the plates of the same color as a whole. Care must be taken when pasting unavoidable loose and small editions, otherwise small and fragmented printing plates will not be firmly attached during the production process, causing damage and loss during the printing process. In addition, when pasting, maintaining, and replacing small or fine patterns and text plates, do not pull hard to prevent damage and tearing.
In order to overcome the unevenness and roughness of the cardboard surface, the printing plate is required to be wear-resistant, strong impact resistance, moderate hardness, good resilience after compression, uniform ink application, uniform thickness. The layout design, hardness requirements, and production methods of the flexographic printing plate should be changed accordingly according to the size of the pattern, text, line, and material of the corrugated cardboard. When the quality of corrugated board is poor and the color of the full solid background is printed, the thicker and softer flexographic version is used; when the corrugated board is of good quality, and the fine patterns, fine prints, and screen versions are printed, the soft and high-thickness flexible and thin Printed resin version.
If the surface of the corrugated cardboard is uneven, warped, powdered or powdered on the printing surface, and sand particles are trapped in the paper, it will cause gluing, crushing, abrasion or damage to the flexographic resin plate and shorten the life of the plate. Therefore, the quality of base paper should be strictly controlled in the production process of corrugated board.
Interior design
The external decoration effect of carton products plays an increasingly important role in product marketing. It can be said that excellent packaging design is an important part of creating marketing power and enhancing the brand image. Decoration design is the content of packaging visual design, which refers to the surface design of packaging, including how to choose colors, graphics, text, trademark brands and barcodes, etc., to achieve the purpose of beautifying and promoting products. For the design of carton packaging for sales, the principle of "eye-catching, understanding, and goodwill" should be followed. . [next]
Eye-catching: It means that the packaging should combine novel and unique shapes, bright and eye-catching colors, and beautiful and exquisite patterns, so that consumers will have a strong interest when they see it.
The color design of packaging and decoration, attached to graphics, text and texture, not only requires beauty and generosity, to meet people's perfect requirements, but also should be highly coordinated with people's psychological feelings. The beauty of color is the easiest thing for people to feel, and it is the first factor that determines sales. Long-term practice has proved that red, blue, white, and black are the four major sales colors. When used as sales colors, they can arouse consumer interest and interest. The pattern should be combined with color to set off the merchandise, fully display the characteristics of the brand trademark, so that consumers can immediately identify the product from the trademark and the overall packaging pattern.
In the design of packaging and decoration of cartons, designers should fully consider the abstract expression laws of different colors, so that colors can better reflect the attributes of commodities, stimulate consumers' desire to buy, and meet the needs of different consumption levels in the target market. It is necessary to pay attention to the matching of cold and warm colors, color blending, contrast, division and other issues, and finally make it unified and coordinated into the entire package. In short, pay attention to the feeling of color in the design of carton packaging and decoration, and rationally apply color psychology theory to reflect the characteristics of packaging products.
The chic shape is mainly reflected by the special-shaped structure, which requires the design of functional structures (such as handles, hand holes or vents, automatic folding carton adhesive flaps, etc.), characteristic structures (such as cut corners, hollows, feet, etc.) And the appearance of the structure (such as non-flux column, non-planar structure) and other special structural elements to achieve, so that they can meet a variety of packaging styles, beautiful shapes, ingenious structure, variety of forms, and can attract the attention of consumers.
Understanding: Refers to the packaging to truly convey the product image, so that consumers can accurately understand the product through the packaging. For carton and carton packaging, the contents can be transmitted by opening the window on the packaging container to display the contents, drawing product graphics, printing product photos, and making concise text descriptions. Accurately conveying product information also requires that the grade of the packaging be adapted to the grade of the product. Covering or exaggerating the quality and function of the product are all failed packages.
Favorable: refers to the shape, color, pattern, and material of the packaging that can arouse people's favorite emotions. Goodwill comes from two aspects, the first is the practical aspect, that is, whether the packaging can meet the needs of consumers in all aspects and provide convenience. Goodwill also comes directly from the feeling of packaging shape, color, pattern and material. This is a comprehensive psychological effect and is closely related to the individual and his environment. For example, women and men like different colors, and different ethnic groups have different favorite colors. The design should combine colors with emotions, folk customs, and situations.
Post check
The designer needs to carefully check the designed product after handing over the finished draft to the proofer. When conditions permit, the designer should directly participate in the proofing, so that the designed product can be improved in time, especially in terms of details. After the sample is printed, it will be revised and finalized. For transport packaging, relevant kinetic tests need to be done to verify whether its strength etc. meet the requirements. For sales packaging, the external decoration of the product should also be carefully observed. First of all, from a few meters away, to see whether the characteristics of the packaging are obvious, and whether the color matching is reasonable. After that, look closely to see if the packaging brand name is obvious, whether the colors are simple and clear, and whether the key information is clearly communicated. The second is to observe in detail to see if there are any flaws or problems.
The design of color box and color box, each aspect has its main content, and they are related to each other. Good designers must not only have graphic design creativity but also be familiar with the entire product packaging process. They must have full grasp of the product attributes, container structure and other aspects related to the success of product sales. The designed products must be Accepted and recognized by customers and markets. This requires designers to not only master the theoretical knowledge of buffer packaging design, but also have an understanding of the entire production process of the enterprise, especially the subsequent production of carton, and also have the necessary aesthetic and cultural cultivation. Only when all aspects are well considered and scientific design methods are used to guide practice, can high-quality products be obtained.
