Prototypes: Giving design an extra dimension

The proof of the pudding is in the eating, or so the saying goes. The proof of the packaging, however, is much more complicated. It has a range of roles to fill, including branding, protection, dispensing and, increasingly, it must do them all with good green credentials.

But how do you decide on the right packaging for a particular product? Packaging manufactures, designers and brand owners make extensive use of prototypes or mock-ups to test packaging formats and try to convince clients and customers that their pack is right for the job in hand. If the customer does not like it, it is back to the drawing board. While computer-aided design (CAD) technology has brought the drawing board closer to the customer, and can make it easier for changes to be made, there’s still no substitute for having something concrete to hold on to.

Computers have made massive inroads into packaging design, but their role is not to make prototyping obsolete, rather to make sure that when a prototype is made it is as close to the final version as possible. What we do is optimise the use of technology so that when a company gets to prototyping there’s no need to change it, says John Elworthy, lead solutions architect at packaging pre-press software specialist EskoArtwork. The big problem with giving someone a mock-up is they might say it’s great, but then ask, ‘Can we turn that image around?’

Time to market
EskoArtwork software allows designers to examine the dimensions of a pack, and look at its visual qualities against various backgrounds – such as a simulated supermarket shelf or a home cupboard. Elworthy says that while CAD can reduce the costs incurred, customers are often more concerned about the time it takes to get a product to market. If it takes longer to get products to supermarket shelves, firms can lose competitive advantage.

Time is a critical factor when producing prototypes. Essex-based prototype manufacturer MPH says that the designers and brand owners it works with all expect high quality mock-ups in extremely short lead times. Most marketers want a prototype made either the same day or within a few days, says sales manager Paul Rogers.

MPH makes a wide range of packaging mock-ups, such as shrink sleeves, cartons and labels. These are typically used to check whether the information on the pack is correct, or carry out market research into how potential consumers receive it. As such, authenticity is key. Most of the mock-ups we produce are conventionally press printed using genuine printing inks, which can be combined with foiling or embossing. We can print on to any substrate and hold the most common ones in stock, says Rogers.

Graham Kershaw, managing director of Stockport-based Macpac, echoes the view that achieving an authentic-looking product is vital for the brand owner or retailer. Many retailers will even expect accurate barcodes on prototypes. Macpac’s real 3D system creates a thermoformed 3D model of a product with high-quality graphics, which Kershaw says are better than photographs, to show the final product. Sometimes you have prototypes that get the material’s thickness right, but are not of production quality. Our system means the customer gets to the see the finished product close up, says Kershaw.

Newcastle-based Opus 21 Digital produces mock-ups and sales samples. Director Mark Hunter Purvis says mock-ups can be used by design agencies to present different ideas to a client or a few hundred samples can be produced to be handed out at a trade show or given to sales teams. He says that particularly for shrink sleeves it can be difficult to know how the
pack will look and where the distortion will be until you have seen a prototype.

On the box
Mock-ups can also be used for TV adverts. Hunter Purvis says: In mass production pouches can get creased. The brand will want two or three pristine examples to appear in the advert. He adds that final packs are often given a gloss varnish, which would reflect too much light during filming. We do a lot of work with PG Tips. We will put a different varnish on the mock-up packs. You don’t want a gloss varnish on TV because you would get too much glare, he explains.

Packaging mock-up firm OTO 3D also makes samples for advertising, as well as for design agencies and market research. Studio manager Andy Whiteside says the firm mostly produces bottles for the drinks market, using acrylic or resin as a substitute for glass. It’s not glass but feels and looks like it, he says.

Whiteside argues that even if the process is expensive, customers still want to have a model. It’s a visual tool that can be passed around in meetings. Whiteside says that because the aim is a simulation rather than an exact replica of the end product, there is less need to use the same material. He says OTO mostly uses standard board and shrink-wraps, although says that sometimes customers specify substrates. Much of the work is for visual representation. Mostly designers just want to see what it would look like in 3D and getting hold of a small quantity of material can be difficult, he says.

Cartonboard packaging specialist Creative Packaging says that, wherever possible, it sources a board that imitates the one used in the final pack. Managing director Lyndon Powell says that the firm uses CAD to design a pack around a customer’s product, but that prototyping plays an important role. We use modelling for all our samples and without it we would struggle to provide a good service to our customers. It’s the best way to work out what they need, he says.

Quick fix
Likewise, RPC Group uses CAD but says it always makes models before going into production. Design manager Jim Dale says the rigid plastics firm used to make initial models in a foam material to give an idea of size and shape, followed by painted solid wood models for the final design. Now the firm often makes a visual model using selective laser sintering (SLS) and stereolithography (SLA) based on data from the CAD file. Dale says SLS and SLA are a quick way to give a customer something to hold and look at.

SLA uses a liquid resin to build a model in layers with a laser, while SLS is a similar laser-based process using powdered polymer. But a really high-class visual display model, for a presentation to management, would be made by hand in a material that replicates the space and material of the finished article, says Dale.

Despite the benefits of CAD, packaging mock-ups are here to stay. Esko’s Elworthy recognises that in the majority of sectors you’ll never completely replace touch and feel, but the design process can be made faster. For something that is picked up, held and moved around, there is a definite value in putting something in someone’s hands as soon as possible, says John Kirkby, creative director at packaging innovation consultancy Design Futures. Prototyping is essential, he says. A pack in the hand, it seems, is still worth two in the bush.

PAKREADY
The advent of computer-based packaging design has meant that when a prototype is made it’s close to the final version, but changes often still need to be made before a pack goes into production. And it can take time for changes to be incorporated into a revised prototype, which also needs to be signed off by the customer. Manchester-based packaging pre-press technology firm Protype has come up with a system for packaging manufacturers and designers to quickly produce prototype cartonboard and corrugated packs.

Studios tend to use creatives to cut out the box by hand, which can be very time consuming, says spokesman Ed Williams. What Pakready does is free them up to do what they do best, thus reducing costs, and it dramatically cuts the time it takes to get a product on to the shelf.

Pakready works by networking the computer used to make the design to a printer and cutting table, which can turn around a print-quality mock-up, including cutting, creasing and embossing, in a short period of time. You can be in a
board meeting between designers and decision makers who ask to change something on the design. The networked machine can be in the next room, and the prototype can be produced while the meeting continues, he says.

The entire process uses the same computer file ensuring the printed images are consistent with the file and making complicated closing mechanisms possible. If you can think up a design the machine can cut it, adds Williams.

A number of companies, such as Kraft Foods and Kodak, have already adopted the Pakready system for packaging design because it allows the firm to control the process in-house. Williams’ design agency, Williams & Crosby, uses the system for its packaging design, as it enables its customers to see the real thing. You can’t do full testing on a computer screen. At the end of the day, prototyping is for products that you need to have in your hands.

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