January 9, 2023
Packaging design that sells your product – Part 2
Okay, part 2 here we come! If you haven’t read Part 1 click here to head on over and read it now!
Countless times we have had clients come to us with their packaging requirements. We recently had a client who, prior to getting in touch with us, had sought out quotes for a cardboard carton to be printed. The cardboard box was to be used in the delivery of the product/s. It had no bearing on the customer perception of the product/brand prior to purchasing.
The client really wanted to have it printed in 4 spot colours. Upon reviewing the brief, we felt we could accomplish a similar look and brand position using only 2 colours however the client was adamant that it needed to be 4 colours. Three of the four colours were essentially the same colour in 3 different tones.
We designed the carton as per the client’s request. It looked amazing! We also used the same design and reduced the colours to 2 to show them how it would look. Creating the second option took literally 15-20 minutes to provide as an option and as the client was determined that they needed to use four colours we switched our timer off (eg. we didn't bill for this time).
We presented the two options. A week later, the client came back to us after considering and elected to go with the two-colour option. This reduced the print manufacturing bill from over $14000 to $9000 as it only required going through the print press in one pass rather than two, didn’t need to sit on the manufacturers floor taking up space to dry in between passes and didn’t need the tolerance to be so tight for registration (the process of ensuring the print of each colour plate is in the correct position so as to not cause overlap of the colours).
Every design job we do is about ensuring our clients get the best outcome. If we simply listened to the client and did exactly as they requested with the four-colour design, the client would have paid an additional $5000 for a box that didn’t look all that different from the two-colour option.
This is what an experienced packaging graphic designer can do. A less experienced designer, without this knowledge of the print/manufacture process (or not confident enough to speak up and communicate the potential saving), would have simply created the four-colour version and the client would have paid the $14000 to have it produced. Yikes!
Not a bad saving for the client considering the design charge for this service was less than 25% of the lower print cost.
If you’d like to know more about our packaging design, visit our packaging design information page here or give us a call on 1300 494 990!
