An important aspect of our work at Paul Cartwright Branding, alongside creating design concepts, is producing print packaging artwork. Great concepts are all well and good, but the finished packaging design needs to be printable in order for a client to sell the product. Obvious? Possibly, but it’s important to know how to do both to make sure the design comes through successfully.
A lot of our clients are in the skincare and home fragrance markets and so we are experienced in creating fragrance packaging artwork for these sectors in particular.
ARTWORK DEVELOPMENT
Most of our projects start off with the design phase, creating concepts and developing them. This then progresses to us creating the finished artworks. This is the ideal situation as we’ve already given a lot of consideration to how the design works generally, the size of text, available space etc. which makes creating the specific artworks much simpler.
There are occasions however, when we aren’t involved with the initial design of a brand or a product’s graphics, the client being happy with what they have. In this instance, clients come to us for our help to continue or develop the range. We then use our experience to expand the existing brand elements and structure (often creating ‘rules’) to produce the new artworks which will work on the new products.
A good example of this, is our work for Urban Apothecary London, who we create all kinds of packaging artworks for.
We’re pleased to have worked with the brand from pretty much day one of their company being founded and we developed the original home fragrance identity. We’ve also also created and continue to be involved in various sister-brands for this now highly successful award-winning fragrance brand. (See here for our design and fragrance packaging artwork for home fragrance brand, Urban Olfactory.)
NEW PRODUCT REQUIREMENTS
As a brand grows, so does the number of products. In the case of Urban Apothecary, originally starting with one size of signature candle, their range now has multiple sizes of candles and associated products, in vessels of various shapes and sizes.
Using a candle as an example, each candle requires a different size of label and we’ve needed to take the existing identity and rationalise it to make sure that the older artworks sit and work with the new ones that we’ve been asked to create.
KEEPING ‘ON BRAND’
New products such as reed diffusers, room sprays, hand gels etc. require different label sizes which may not have been imagined at the initial brand design stage. So, the artworks for these new products require additional consideration; (a) do they feel ‘on brand’ i.e. the same/similar proportions/overall space to the existing (b) can the required copy (logo, descriptions etc.) be made to work and still be legible and (c) can the label be produced and then applied successfully to the product?
There are then items, such as self-adhesive base labels or the layout on the backs of cartons, that require specific information to be featured on them in order for them to be compliant to various regulations. Sizes of symbols (such as warning symbols), barcodes and weight declarations all need to be featured at specific sizes for legibility and print purposes.
Often these base labels need to be the more complex ‘peel and read’ booklet-style labels. These are necessary on products where a lot of detail is required or where space is limited using just a single-ply label.
We create a ‘master’ artwork, developed to thrash out how a typical label/sachet/carton will look before commencing with creating the remaining artworks. With regards to a fragrance brand where there are multiple fragrances (in Urban Apothecary’s case – 8), there are 8 sets of artwork to create! Much better to spend the time fine-tuning one artwork than revising all 8!
MORE UNUSUAL PACKAGING ARTWORKS
A lot of our work is label and carton-type packaging, but as clients expand their ranges we are asked to look at more unusual items, such as single-use sachets (great for trialling lotions and creams.) These have their own specific production requirements.
Below are some visuals of some sample sachets we created the artworks for for Urban Apothecary.
Going back to our Urban Apothecary example, the brand started as a home fragrance brand, but has now grown significantly and is launching a range of eau de parfum products. As well as the primary perfume bottle (with its front label, base label and carton) we’ve also created the fragrance packaging artwork for tester samples where a 2ml vial of the fragrance is held within a protective cardboard folder booklet.
Again, these required warning symbols, warning copy and ingredients listings along with weight declaration and barcodes.
GIFT FRAGRANCE PACKAGING ARTWORK
As well as continuing with an existing identity we are often asked to look at the packaging graphics for seasonal products. Being sold as a gift, it is important that the product is eye-catching and yet still maintains the overall brand identity. We create design options to add in a point of difference for specific gift products – often by adding simple embellishments, in the form of creating a pattern as shown below.
We also create 3D visuals of bespoke items such as the cute gift bag shown here. These visuals are great for buyer meetings where an idea can be discussed without actually going to the expense of sampling a physical item!
So, as you can see there are more technical and diverse considerations when creating fragrance packaging artwork – as well as ensuring the design looks and feels right, and continues the brand identity.
Consistency is key and we strive to keep artworks feeling part of the family, regardless of their shape and size.
Our work for Urban Apothecary can be seen on their new website at www.urbanapothecarylondon.com
Another project that may be of interest is our work on the packaging artwork for OCCO London. Details can be found here.
