Design
Packaging & Print Design
Slower and more pedantic than digital work, deliberately. A colour that looks right on screen and wrong on 10,000 boxes is an expensive lesson.
Packaging and print design produces artwork built to your printer's specification, with bleed, dielines and colour profile correct. The Nexclick works from the production spec before designing, because print mistakes are expensive in a way web mistakes are not — a reprint costs the whole run.
Is this you?
What usually prompts the call
- Your printer keeps rejecting artwork and nobody can say why.
- Colours printed noticeably differently from what was approved on screen.
- You are launching a product and have no packaging artwork or dieline.
- Your packaging predates your current brand and no longer matches anything else.
What we do
The actual deliverables
Things that appear on an invoice, not adjectives.
- Get the production specification first
- Dieline, substrate, print process, finishes and tolerances from the printer before designing. Designing then asking is how artwork gets rejected.
- Design to the dieline
- Working within the actual cut, fold and glue geometry, with safe areas respected so nothing important lands on a crease or gets trimmed off.
- Colour management
- CMYK or Pantone as the process requires, with the difference between screen and press understood and communicated before approval rather than after.
- Regulatory content placement
- Barcodes, ingredients, weights, recycling marks, allergens and warnings positioned to meet requirements. Getting this wrong can make a whole run unsellable.
- Finish and substrate consideration
- How the design behaves on uncoated stock, under spot varnish, foiled or embossed. Effects that look striking on screen sometimes disappear in production.
- Print-ready artwork with pre-flight
- Bleed, trim marks, colour profile, embedded fonts and image resolution checked before it goes. A pre-flight pass is the cheapest insurance in this discipline.
- Proofing before the run
- A physical proof reviewed and approved before full production. On any meaningful print run this is not optional, and skipping it is where the horror stories come from.
Comparison
Print mistakes and what each one costs
Every entry here is something we have seen reach production. Print errors are expensive in a way digital errors are not, because the fix is the whole run — check each before signing anything off.
| Mistake | Where it shows | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| No bleed on the artwork | White slivers at the trimmed edge | Full reprint |
| Important content inside the trim margin | Text cut off at the edge | Full reprint |
| Content across a fold or crease | Logo creased down the middle | Full reprint |
| RGB artwork sent for CMYK printing | Colours shift, often badly | Reprint, or accept the shift |
| Brand colour built in CMYK rather than Pantone | Inconsistent between print runs | Ongoing inconsistency |
| Images below 300dpi at final size | Visibly soft or pixelated | Full reprint |
| Fonts not embedded or outlined | Printer substitutes a different typeface | Caught at pre-flight, or reprint |
| Barcode too small or low contrast | Will not scan at the till | Full reprint; product unsellable |
| Missing regulatory content | Non-compliant packaging | Full reprint; possible enforcement |
| Colour approved from a screen only | Printed result differs from expectation | Argument, then reprint |
| Design finished before the dieline was confirmed | Artwork does not fit the structure | Redesign, plus lost time |
| Spot varnish or foil designed without a separate layer | Printer cannot produce the effect | Rework before printing |
How it works
Step by step, with timeframes
Timeframes are typical rather than guaranteed, and they assume we get account access and approvals when we ask.
- 01Week 1
Gather the production spec
Dieline, substrate, process, finishes and any regulatory requirements, direct from the printer.
- 02Week 2–4
Design
Concepts within the dieline, presented as flat artwork and as a mockup on the actual structure.
- 03Week 4–5
Refine and pre-flight
One revision round, then technical checking — bleed, colour, resolution, fonts and regulatory content.
- 04Week 5–7
Proof and approve
Physical proof from the printer, reviewed against the design, with any final corrections before the run.
What you get
Reporting and ownership
- Print-ready artwork built to your printer’s exact specification, pre-flighted before supply.
- Working files supplied, so a variant or a size change does not require starting again.
- Regulatory content placed and checked against the requirements for your product category.
- A physical proof reviewed before the run, not after.
- A written record of colour references, so a reprint in two years matches.
Tools and platforms
- Adobe Illustrator & InDesign
- Photoshop
- Pantone colour references
- Printer dielines and specifications
- Pre-flight checking
- Physical proofing
Timeline
How long this actually takes
Five to seven weeks including physical proofing, which is the stage that cannot be compressed and should not be skipped. Printer lead times sit on top of that. This discipline moves more slowly than digital work on purpose: a mistake on a website is fixed in ten minutes, and a mistake on a print run means the whole run. Two things that consistently cause problems — approving colour from a screen rather than a physical proof, and designing before the dieline is confirmed. Both are avoidable and both are common.
Pricing model
Fixed-price project
Fixed price by number of items and variants. Printing itself is paid to your printer directly — we do not mark up production, and we will work with whichever printer you choose.
Questions
Packaging & Print Design questions
Why do you need the dieline before designing?
Because the dieline is the actual geometry — where it cuts, folds and glues. Designing a flat rectangle and adapting it afterwards puts content across creases and inside glue flaps. Getting the dieline from the printer first takes a phone call and prevents a redesign.
Why did our printed colours look different from the screen?
Screens emit light and print reflects it, so the two can never match exactly. Bright, saturated colours in particular cannot be reproduced in CMYK. This is why colour is approved from a physical proof rather than a monitor, and why brand colours should have a Pantone reference.
Do we need Pantone colours?
For brand colours that must be consistent across runs and substrates, yes. Pantone is mixed ink and reproduces identically every time; CMYK builds vary between presses and papers. It costs more per run and it is what prevents your brand colour drifting over three years of reprints.
Can you work with our existing printer?
Yes, and we prefer to. Every printer has its own specification, tolerances and preferences, and artwork built to theirs goes through cleanly. We do not mark up production or push you toward a particular supplier.
What regulatory content does packaging need?
It depends entirely on the product — food, cosmetics, electricals and toys each have their own requirements covering ingredients, weights, warnings, recycling marks and origin. You or your compliance adviser define what is required; we place it correctly and check it survives the trim.
Is a physical proof really necessary?
On any run of meaningful size, yes. It is the only way to see actual colour, actual stock and actual finish. The cost of a proof is trivial against the cost of discovering a problem on 10,000 units, and every print horror story we have heard involved skipping this step.
Last reviewed 28 July 2026.
Tell us what you are trying to fix
A 20-minute call, no pitch deck. The Nexclick will tell you what we would do, roughly what it costs, and whether we are the right people for it.