Presentation is Just Part of the Story
April 2005
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Integrating packaging design with the realities of process capabilities is key to a project's success.
WHY DO WE reach for one package and not another on the grocer's shelf? What makes a package unique? On the continuum from concept to production, where does innovation live? The answer, in a word, is design.
The transformation of an idea into a dimensional shape with identifiable characteristics begins with a designer's aesthetic and emotional connection to that idea. As the creative cycle builds, additional factors come into play: the requirements of the product engineers, marketers engaged in product development and brand extension, procurement personnel, and printer/converters, whose concerted effort will deliver a package manufactured to specifications, at the lowest practical cost, under optimal conditions, by the right print provider.
According to Dean Lindsay of Dean Lindsay Design, an independent Chicago-based design firm specializing in package design and consumer products development, "What the loop usually is missing is the creative input. Consequently, the design brief I receive directs me to create an innovative package." In doing so, however, a designer has to understand the real-world constraints of the project, including budget and process, to conceive and create a package that will both grab a consumer's attention and fit the required performance specifications.
"We look at the entire supply chain if we are doing our job correctly," Lindsay says.
In fact, the need for a roadmap that details mutual understandings and process details up front is so important that it is largely responsible for a trend among packaging suppliers to control more of the process by bringing their design agencies in-house. This value-added trend is also reflected in the growing menu of services provided by mega trade shops like Schawk and Matthews International, as well as in the proliferation of design-specific enhancements to popular packaging workflows.
Communication and control
Berlin Packaging, the largest stocking supplier of rigid packaging in the United States, favors an integrated approach with the dedicated design function at the hub. The company offers custom branding and package development services through its Studio One Eleven design division.
Studio One Eleven was established five years ago as a virtual studio staffed by a cadre of freelance designers. When the concept ultimately proved unworkable, Berlin determined that product development work requires close collaboration and must be done in-house rather than outsourced.
According to Director Scott Jost, all Studio One Eleven designers have consultative backgrounds. This is important in the agency's ability to bring a marketing perspective to the production side and process knowledge to the marketing side. Jost himself holds an MBA from the University of Chicago.
WHY DO WE reach for one package and not another on the grocer's shelf? What makes a package unique? On the continuum from concept to production, where does innovation live? The answer, in a word, is design.
The transformation of an idea into a dimensional shape with identifiable characteristics begins with a designer's aesthetic and emotional connection to that idea. As the creative cycle builds, additional factors come into play: the requirements of the product engineers, marketers engaged in product development and brand extension, procurement personnel, and printer/converters, whose concerted effort will deliver a package manufactured to specifications, at the lowest practical cost, under optimal conditions, by the right print provider.
According to Dean Lindsay of Dean Lindsay Design, an independent Chicago-based design firm specializing in package design and consumer products development, "What the loop usually is missing is the creative input. Consequently, the design brief I receive directs me to create an innovative package." In doing so, however, a designer has to understand the real-world constraints of the project, including budget and process, to conceive and create a package that will both grab a consumer's attention and fit the required performance specifications.
"We look at the entire supply chain if we are doing our job correctly," Lindsay says.
In fact, the need for a roadmap that details mutual understandings and process details up front is so important that it is largely responsible for a trend among packaging suppliers to control more of the process by bringing their design agencies in-house. This value-added trend is also reflected in the growing menu of services provided by mega trade shops like Schawk and Matthews International, as well as in the proliferation of design-specific enhancements to popular packaging workflows.
Communication and control
Berlin Packaging, the largest stocking supplier of rigid packaging in the United States, favors an integrated approach with the dedicated design function at the hub. The company offers custom branding and package development services through its Studio One Eleven design division.
Studio One Eleven was established five years ago as a virtual studio staffed by a cadre of freelance designers. When the concept ultimately proved unworkable, Berlin determined that product development work requires close collaboration and must be done in-house rather than outsourced.
According to Director Scott Jost, all Studio One Eleven designers have consultative backgrounds. This is important in the agency's ability to bring a marketing perspective to the production side and process knowledge to the marketing side. Jost himself holds an MBA from the University of Chicago.
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