Where the Rubber Hits the Road

In today’s intensely competitive consumer environment, a package is considerably more than an inert enclosure or container for a given product. As marketers compete for shelf space and consumer dollars, packages have become dynamic, high-performing marketing tools.

From a design perspective, the creation of a package involves two distinct but intimately related workflows representing structure and graphic design. And, while graphics continue to play a critical a role in boosting a product’s visual appeal, the practical and functional advantages of a well-engineered package should never be discounted. Indeed, the lexicon of box styles—reverse tuck, same tuck or rollover end, crash bottom, snap-lock bottom front, auto-bottom hinge front, auto-bottom pop-up, auto bottom with fifth panel, folder, simplex tray or tray with frame, and many more—rivals the competitive vocabulary of Olympic figure skating and can be as difficult to execute as any triple toe loop.

A company very familiar with packaging design is Midlands Packaging Corporation, a privately held company with corporate headquarters and production facilities located in Lincoln, Neb. The company specializes in developing custom and standard solutions for folding cartons, corrugated, and thermoformed plastics packaging, primarily in the pharmaceutical, animal health, and hardware markets.

The company boasts a complete Esko-Graphics prepress system, an in-house structural design and die shop, as well as printing and diecutting capabilities. Midlands’ structural design department uses Esko’s ArtiosCAD Computer Aided Design (CAD) software to develop innovative and effective folding carton and corrugated structural design solutions. A direct computer link to the Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM) system anchored by a pair of Kongsberg die-less cutting tables enables Midlands’ designers to be more creative and responsive in the design and development process.

Distinctive structure with distinctive graphics

“The days of the standard reverse tuck-in end carton are going away,” says Brent Lindquist, design/die room manager. “Differentiation used to be accomplished primarily with graphics, but now it’s being done more and more with structure.”

As packaging becomes more marketing-driven, however, the “push-me-pull-you” factor between what constitutes a package that can be manufactured accurately, efficiently, and cost-effectively and one that satisfies the customer at every level—economic, functional and aesthetic—comes into sharper focus. In an ideal world, of course, these goals are one in the same.

Practically speaking, however, the perfect integration of graphic branding with structural functionality is harder to achieve, primarily because of the number of potential variables involved. Customer requirements for economy, convenience, shipping and handling efficiency, anticipated usage behavior, delivery requirements—even sustainability, all have a potential bearing on the design process.

In emphasizing manufacturability without sacrificing aesthetic considerations, Midlands’ team process approaches the ideal. “We work to get the package manufactured. It’s a practical goal, not an aesthetic one. We all understand this,” Lindquist says, dismissing potential conflicts based on differences in designer training and methodology. That said, he adds, “What the customer wants, the customer gets,” and there can lie the rub. “For example,” says Lindquist, “a lot of the time we’ll give the customer what it wants, only to find out later that marketing wants more than purchasing can pay for. Modifications ensue.”

Rolling with the punches

Ameliorating difficulties like these is a key area where the flexibility of a company’s CAD/CAM system gets to shine. Midlands uses ArtiosCAD and Kongsberg sample tables in combination to produce designs and prototypes that readily lend themselves to the printing and diecutting processes to come. The beauty of automation incorporated into a design tool, and the reason why it enhances rather than constrains the creative process, says Lindquist, is that the software is extremely specialized and highly customizable for packaging applications.

For example, says Lindquist, “If you take the time to create a six-sided auto-closing bottom, you can create it parametrically to make a library of reusable standards and templates,” saving time and reducing errors associated with having to reinvent a package from scratch. ArtiosCAD’s layout and tooling design features can be used to create plate layouts and die tooling optimized for the production equipment that will be used in manufacturing. Tool alignment and snapping features provide graphical feedback, while complete 3D integration allows for quick prototyping of designs and presentations.

With Artios3D, structural designers like Lindquist can check the offsets between panels, tabs, etc. in the final folded product. It also “remembers” the fold angles, allowing these checks to be quickly performed at each step of the design process.

Can’t have one without the other

At Midlands Packaging, structural design usually precedes graphic design for the simple reason that it saves headaches down the road, especially for the graphic designer, but these parallel workflows are far from independent. “We like our customers to approve the structural design before dealing with the graphics. In practice, we’ll work from an engineering drawing or on the actual product to be packaged, then add some customer-supplied graphics, print and make some samples on our cutting tables,” Lindquist says. “Structural and graphic design really go hand-in-hand,” because the geometry of a package largely determines what and how the graphics get placed.

Not surprisingly, Midlands has this down to a science. According to Lindquist, “With the tools we have on hand, we can make prototypes so quickly and efficiently now that we often make 10 to 15 of them rather than just two or three.” Speed is always of the essence—Midlands can supply samples and create prototypes in less than 24 hours.

Is it possible to generalize about the characteristics of structural designs that work as they are intended to work? “For me,” says Lindquist, “an effective package design is one that works and makes the customer happy. Granted, it rarely happens, but we aim to produce a quality design that can be manufactured efficiently and accurately.” pP