Does Your Team Waste Time in the Packaging Design and Development Process?

Step 2: Artwork and Structural Package Design Creation

After the brief, it’s time to start creating a new design or updating an existing one. The packaging engineer needs to design a structural, protective pack for the product to go in and a designer needs to develop the artwork to accompany it.

The design team must be in sync every step of the way.

Common Challenges at this Step:

• Coordinating updates across all versions of a package design
• Designing 3D assets in 2D can lead to confusion and errors
• Failing to understand how a package design will look on store shelves
• Confusion about package size requirements
• The design is created in a form that’s not print-ready and has to go through additional steps before printing

How Esko Can Help:

• Studio visualization software for designers and converters enables better 3D artwork and packaging design
• ArtiosCAD simplifies the creation of 2D and 3D structural designs, resizes designs to fit products, and creates internal fitments
• Store Visualizer allows designers to create a virtual retail environment, test the visual impact of designs, and determine the best shelf placement
• Cape Pack optimizes product size for shipping, creates new case sizes, and builds efficient pallet patterns
• Designs created using Esko products are print-ready so they can easily be sent to suppliers for production

Step 3: The Review and Approval Process

When a design is ready for review, it’s time to collect feedback.

This step in the packaging development and design process is notoriously a big source of bottlenecks and errors, especially when relying upon a manual system to collect and distribute feedback.

Common Challenges at This Step

• Corralling feedback from necessary stakeholders
• Relying on email chains, spreadsheets, or physical paper approvals
• Waiting for and collating numerous rounds of revisions
• Reviewers who mistakenly provide feedback on outdated designs

How Esko Can Help

• WebCenter automates the review and approval process and allows multiple reviewers to annotate a document at the same time
• Reviewers are notified when their approval is needed and project managers can see who has and hasn't provided feedback
• The WebCenter compare tool enables designers and approvers to review document versions side by side
• WebCenter provides a historical record of the design process to date in a single online source

Step 4: Distributing Artwork, Label, and Packaging Assets Through E-Commerce

Many brands rely on e-commerce for their success and need a better way to keep product packshots up-to-date.

Manual packshot processes impede efficiency and thus are time-consuming and expensive.

Common Challenges at This Step

• Commissioning packshots for new products is already a lengthy, manual, and expensive process
• Modifying packshots is a significant cause of inefficiency
• It’s difficult to manage the different views required from varying e-commerce partners
• The physical product packaging needs to be created as a sample before packaging approval or product photography can begin

How Esko Can Help

• Automatically create packshots using the 3D shape with all artwork in any combination of views, sizes, resolutions, and file formats with optional backgrounds, shadows, and floor reflections – which can be sent directly to e-commerce partners
• Save time and money by creating a digital twin of the product before the physical packaging has been produced
• The digital twin provides the ability to send product packaging through approval cycles without the need to wait for a physical proof

Step 5: Distribution to Printing and Production

Sending a finalized design to print is, unfortunately, not as easy as it sounds. There are many potential hurdles between submitting a design and getting it produced exactly as intended.

Common Challenges at This Step

• Ensuring brand design requirements are followed
• Producing color specifications correctly and maintaining those specifications throughout many steps and partners in the supply chain
• Facilitating costly redo’s

How Esko Can Help

• WebCenter Color Trace tracks color quality and consistency among all internal and external brand partners and suppliers
• Color Trace structures the collection of print specifications, communicates them automatically to the supply chain, and returns a scorecard for each job
• Information generated by Color Trace is incorporated into the workflow to provide visibility and standardized color processes