Packaging Design
Design Packaging That Folds, Prints, and Sells on the Shelf
About this course
Packaging is the rare design discipline where the artwork has to fold, glue, stack, ship, and survive a retail shelf - so the structure comes first and the graphics live inside it. This course teaches the working packaging-design pipeline used on real folding cartons: reading and building a dieline, respecting glue tabs and safety margins, setting bleed and trapping for offset and flexo printing, naming Pantone spot colors and dielines on their own non-printing layers, designing for shelf impact and the regulated panels a product must carry, and presenting the result as a 3D mockup. By the end you will have one complete carton design as a layered, print-ready file with its own dieline, plus a photoreal mockup ready to show a client.
Curriculum
Module 1: How Packaging Is Built: Dielines and Structure
- From Flat Sheet to Folded BoxPreview
- Reading a Dieline: Cut, Crease, Bleed, and Glue🔒
- Structural Constraints: Tabs, Flaps, and Safety Margins🔒
Module 2: Print Production: Specs, Color, and Files
- Print Processes and What They Demand🔒
- Bleed, Color Mode, and Spot vs Process🔒
- Finishes, Overprint, and the Print Spec Sheet🔒
Module 3: Shelf Impact: Designing the Visible Package
- The Front Panel and Visual Hierarchy🔒
- Shelf Standout and the Category Context🔒
- Mandatory Panels: Barcodes, Net Quantity, and Compliance🔒
Module 4: Prototyping, Mockups, and Client Handoff
- Cut-and-Fold Prototypes and Proofing🔒
- Photoreal Mockups for Presentation🔒
- Packaging the Files: Handoff and Print-Ready Delivery🔒