Packaging industry is big but not strong, which is an important issue that has been discussed in the industry. Many scholars have given their own unique views from different perspectives. Today, I want to start from the packaging design industry practitioners – packaging designers. Perhaps, the packaging industry is large but not strong, from which we can get a little.
Packaging design is a systematic and comprehensive subject, which can be said to be the organic combination of graphic design, structural design and process design. It also requires packaging designers to comprehensively master certain theoretical knowledge and professional skills in advertising, design, materials, marketing, packaging, storage and transportation and other related fields. Therefore, a qualified packaging designer is definitely not only the designer in front of the design table or computer, he should have the professional knowledge of production, understand the production process of each stage, and know how printing, color separation, photography, knife line, box rolling and paste are all the same? And have a full understanding of all kinds of packaging materials. Once the production situation, they can immediately determine where the problem is, how to remedy it? Instead of just completing the design, the rest is left to the production. Because of the complexity of the post of packaging designer, many college graduates choose graphic design and product design respectively after graduation. Because, in their eyes, the packaging designer is a “King” like existence, not easy to get up a career. Next, let’s analyze the field of packaging designers from the small and the big to see if we can understand the small and see if we can find the answer to the problem that the packaging design industry is big but not strong.
Difficulty: it is not designer’s “self Hi”, but from the perspective of commercial design
In Sima Qian’s historical records, “the biography of goods and herdsmen”, he said: “all the people in the world are for profit; all the people in the world are for profit.”
As a packaging designer, the first thing to be clear is that packaging design is based on the protection of products, focusing on the promotion of product sales, rather than the designer’s own art. That is to say, what the packaging designer does is a kind of commercial design. So, what is business design? Commercial design is to serve the terminal consumers of commodities, to change the consumption behavior of people and the sales mode of commodities while meeting the consumption demand of people, and to create commercial value for enterprises and brands. Therefore, the essence of business design is to create value for the brand and meet customer needs. This is where packaging designers need to be clear.
So, where is the commercial design reflected? A packaging from the beginning, we have to consider the acceptance of market consumers, customers’ acceptance psychology. In addition, what kind of design, material and printing process are used? These are also essential considerations. Looking at a good packaging and printing products, they have their own flash points in the selection of printing materials and technology, which is a result of careful artistic design consideration, which conforms to the aesthetic point of view and has originality. Yes, the success of printing directly determines the quality of commodity packaging. Good printing can add luster and color to the work. In this way, the storage of printing knowledge has become a necessary way for packaging designers. Packaging designers should not only master the common sense of printing, but also know what processes can be realized in printing. If the packaging designer master these printing and manufacturing processes, it will be of great benefit to the designer’s design works, so that they can see the final effect of the finished product from the beginning of the creativity, and know it well, and it is no longer blind design. Minimize the idle work in the early design, and some difficult or impossible graphic effects can be replaced or directly chosen not to be done
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Printing knowledge reserve is a difficult point for many packaging designers, but if you can consider it from the perspective of commercial design, you will find that with the support of these basic knowledge, it will be easier to win the favor of the end consumers than with no idea. In addition, in addition to printing knowledge, packaging designers involved in the work of structural knowledge, but also the most important.
Key point: understand the way of structure
The dimension drawing of a packing box is composed of knife line and pressing line. Generally, packaging designers will use Photoshop, CorelDRAW, illustrator and other graphic designers’ software when designing knife line drawings. But before using these software, the packaging designer needs to have a certain concept about the composition of the whole packaging box, that is to say, there should be several sides, where the glue is, and so on. If there is no certain basic concept about the structure of the box, it is impossible to complete the box type design, which makes the starting point of the packaging designer higher than that of the graphic designer. In his mind, he needs to contain numerous standard box types. Even if a new box type is designed, they also need to judge whether the new box type is reasonable when it is put into printing, that is, whether it can be Enough to shape? When the packaging designer designs the box type, he will also choose the packaging magician CAD software. There are some common models in it, which can be used after the parameter size is adjusted independently; there are 3D virtual proofing effects, and the design drawings can be pasted directly, and the effect samples can be seen immediately after the completion.
In addition to the above software, the most commonly used 3D Max animation rendering and display software is also used by packaging designers. However, from the beginning of 3D Max, such software is used by special packaging designers or other designers in need. The use of the software must have a certain degree of knowledge, otherwise it can not be operated by hand. Although it may be simplified by later generations, fundamentally speaking, in terms of operation and function, there is not a low threshold for a packaging designer who wants to work in this industry as well as a new packaging designer. For enterprises, if they want to use these software, they also need to hire professional packaging designers. Such human cost is sometimes very large for enterprises.
From the point of view of the difficulties and key points in the field of packaging designers, it may not be difficult for us to understand why the packaging design industry is large and not strong? The whole threshold of packaging design industry is extremely high, so the requirements for practitioners are naturally high. Therefore, how to find a way to reduce the threshold of packaging design industry may be one of the ways to solve the big and weak problems in the industry.
Highlight: Innovation of packaging design industry
If the packaging design industry wants to innovate, it has to start from technology. As mentioned before, packaging box needs professional design and tangent before printing finished products, but most people do not have professional box structure design foundation, and the knife line is not unified naturally. One of the highlights of Dr. boxuni’s cube is to provide professional knife line and standard color box design template. Just input the finished product size and download the standard design knife line drawing immediately. If the designed file is uploaded immediately, you can see the 3D physical drawing online, realize what you see is what you get, and avoid the process of repeated proofing. In addition, the platform provides a variety of pre press document processing functions, such as: preflight, automatic panel, color conversion, PDF optimization, etc. A series of operations greatly reduce the working time and communication cost of packaging designers in the design of box type, and will undoubtedly lower the threshold of packaging design industry. I dare say that it will become a big trend to integrate proofing orders with Internet platform. Through the world’s advanced and professional digital printing production line, customized samples are completed with the highest efficiency and delivered to the logistics; the Dr. boxuni cube, who can really achieve single printing, rapid production and fast delivery, will become the innovation leader of the packaging design industry.
Understand that packaging design industry is no exception when every industry is innovating and changing. Only starting from the inside, changing the internal communication habits and reducing the communication cost and threshold of the industry can be regarded as unique innovation. It can be predicted that through the development of these technological innovations, the packaging design industry will get rid of the traditional thinking. The packaging design industry is a blue ocean with endless opportunities.
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