How to Make a Paper Box Step by Step

In the heat of the Coronavirus epidemic outbreak in China, one factory guy shared making a square paper box by hand to kill time. It can be used to hold some desk trashes like nutshells, or other little things. Listed hereinafter are the steps:

How to make a paper box by hand:

1. Get a square paper, preferably repurposed from used items. What’s used here for demonstration is a piece of T=0.18mm brown kraft paper(22*22cm) , retrieved from a used paper handbag.

The thicker the paper is, the more rigid the box will be. But thicker paper make it more difficult to fold. You can find a trade-off here.

2. Fold the paper in half twice, to form two perpendicular creases as shown in the photo.

3. Fold the four corners inward along the creases and make them meet at the center of the paper.

Spectrum of Packaging from Simple to Excessive

— Implications in modern packaging of a Chinese allusion “Keep the fancy case but give back the valuable pearl…”

There’s a household idiom in Chinese which goes as follows:

About 2,300 years ago, a jewelry dealer from Chu state (of the ancient China) traded pearls in Zheng state. One day, he had a very precious pearl.
In order to sell it at a premium price, he decided to make a fancy box for it. He had a top carpenter make an exquisite box with rare wood, then employ a top craftsman to carve delicate patterns top and elaborately decorate it with superior perfume and gem stones. The dealer then put the pearl in and was confident of the packaging.

A person from Zheng State was deeply enamored by the pretty case and bought it for a high price after some bargaining.
But the story didn’t end here as usual!
To his surprise, the buyer soon returned with the case and pearl. The dealer was literally a little frustrated and expected he would think again. But to his astonishment, the buyer took the pearl out, gave it back to the dealer and left with the glittering box only!

This Chinese idiom is used to satirize people who are bewitched by the gorgeous appearance and give up the precious essence, and also used more broadly to mean lacking judgement and making false choices.

In reality, few would go to extremes like the character in the story, perhaps. But when it comes to packaging, it does render us a bit of deja vu, especially with some health products in China. Some products are not as valuable as its packaging and that’s not exaggerating.

However, the importance of packaging should by no means be down played, either to sellers or buyers. Aside from protecting the products inside, a good packaging go a long way in terms of communicating product and brand values between the two parties.

Then, at the spectrum of packaging from simple to excessive, where’s the right point? Maybe there are a thousand hamlets in a thousand people’s eyes.
1. As a buyer/consumer, to what extent will you buy in a fancy packaging?
2. If you’re a marketer, how will you balance between luxury and simplicity of packaging?

Deliver the Bumpiest Mini Drawer Gift Boxes Project

Simple does not mean easy! Recently we’ve worked on a project where entails a two-part drawer gift box as an accessory to the larger complex box. This tiny box involves no odd shapes, nor complex structure or design! Just so normal except for its delicate size. But just as being so small in size, it had once been quite challenging – unlike round mini tubes(eg. lip balm tubes) which can run on machines. Here’s the story on how we struggled (if not got stuck) in such a ‘simple’ box, and finally were determined to deliver, but at the expense of profits!

This tiny drawer gift box, as shown above, would probably be figured as something not worth the candle by most suppliers, which could be told from the dimensions (as in the following dieline).

Failed Outsourcing Attempts
Frankly, the reason that we’d accept such an order in the busy season is partly because it’s an accessory, and partly because we thought we could outsource this part. Some peer vendors may specialize in such hand-made boxes.
The first few we contacted all declined flatly at the sight of the drawing. Then we tried to contact some factories who keep good relationship with us and asked for their favor. All of them agreed to try but gave up within one or two days. We were somewhat prepared for such reaction. With its delicate size, it can’t fit on the automatic box folding machines. And as it measures hardly the width of an index finger, it’s tricky for manual handling. Thus even the workers are not willing to work on this project because the slow progress affected their piece wages.
The time lapsed fast – two weeks had passed, and we had approached no less than 10 peer cardboard gift boxes factories. The main/larger gift box sets were already done and the agreed delivery time is almost due. However, the little box project was literally going nowhere!

Round gift boxes get popular in product packaging

Round cardboard tubes catch on in recent years! you can find more and more products are packed in tubes, cosmetics, food, tea and gifts, etc.
Compared to traditional square/rectangular rigid gift boxes, custom paper tubes packaging has its pronounced advantages:
1. Tubes are not so apt to bend from pressure. This advantage may come from its different material and production method. Tubes are machine rolled from kraft paper, layer by layer, and reinforced with glue. But non-tube rigid boxes are mainly framed/support by thick grey board. And all boards, whatever they are made of, tend to warp.
2. The shape make a difference. Pressure over round tubes are evenly spread along the rim, while other shapes can’t as they have corners.

3. Round tubes are more simple in making. Round tubes production generally involves tube rolling, wrapping, some may require hemmed edges and finish treatment, etc. And non-tube packaging entails scoring, die-cutting, except for aforesaid steps.
4. Despite all the above merits, round cardboard gift boxes are even cheaper and more stable in quality.
Of course, many things factor in the choice of packaging styles. products, brand concepts, preferences of certain consumer segments and management teams among other elements influence what to box type to use.
We, Innove Packaging focus on custom cardboard gift boxes manufacturing. Welcome to communicate with us on any packaging needs or questions!

How to make real GREEN packaging boxes for tea products

With the growing environmental awareness amid consumers, today's environmentally friendly green packaging has become a global trend. Innove Packaging believes that the concept of green packaging can mainly be interpreted in two aspects: protecting the environment and saving resources. The two are complementary and indispensable. But how can we achieve true "green packaging"?

1. Green Materials. The packaging materials should be non-toxic and harmless to the human body and living things. It should be noted that the package should not contain toxic elements.
2. Packaging Minimization. That is, in the packaging design, the designers should keep environmental protection and reducing waste in mind, as well as satisfying the basic packaging purpose. 
3. Degradation of Packaging Waste. Make sure that the discarded packaging material can be decomposed in the natural environment without polluting the natural environment.

Innove Packaging is a professional high-end custom packaging boxes manufacturer. Go Green is our constant pursuit of packaging. Environmental protection and a green earth is what we're always working hard to achieve, together with every party involved!

What are the difficulties with personalized, small-lot custom packaging demand?

   In the historic context of new retail era, brand developers and third-party platforms have spared no effort in situational demand satisfaction, bringing new markets and new business opportunities for personalized packaging.

   After the rise of printing e-commerce, new concepts such as personalized customization, small-volume customization, and large-scale personalized customization have gradually emerged. In recent years, the trend of small batches, individualization and customization in the domestic consumer market has intensified, from Weiquan’s Word Game Bottles campaign(“拼字瓶”) to the Colgate's Dare to Love series, and even to Oreo’s custom packaging for Tmall platform.

    Behind the personalized economy, people's new lifestyles and new social concepts are gradually taking shape. Throughout all the consumer trends and desires, many forms of personalization services already come to being, personalized education, personalized travel services, personalized wedding services, personalized gift customization, personalized clothing customization, personalized luxury ordering... Printing-related personalized applications are endless, and they are constantly evolving with rapid growth. Human society has now entered a personalized era. With the Internet technology, consumption upgrades and social development, this trend of personalized development will become more apparent.

    Back to the personalization process of the printing industry, it is not easy to get started. And even today, there is no mature profit model existing. The early players are mostly in the industry. They have been struggling in the dilemma of where the traffic comes from and how the customer cost is reduced. It doesn't seem to be as smooth as I imagined.

    Where is the aporia for personalization?

   The problem of personalized customization is not a new topic, and it’s a problem that the industry has always been working on: high service costs and high manufacturing costs. The most tricky part lie with personalized customization is the contradiction between critical requirements and small order quantity, low efficiency in winning orders; too low output results in high factory cost of service and manufacturing and thus low profit, which makes the factory unwilling to take orders.

    There are two fundamental reasons for the difficulty of personalization. One is that the order is inefficient and the output is low compared to the big order. The second is that the factory assembly line are designed for mass order production, which is not suitable for small orders.

    Therefore, personalized customization must use a production mode suitable for small orders, do not shoot mosquitoes with a cannon, in order to get out of the misunderstanding of personalized customization.

    The essence of the problem of custom box designs is profit. If the profit brought by personalization is far higher than the cost of fulfilling the order, this will become a profitable thing, the problems with personalization will no more exist.

    All in all, personalized packaging is a tempting business, on the one hand, it is really profitable, and the imagination is huge. On the other hand, we have also seen some of many printing and packaging companies peers who have tried get the fruit failed in practice.

High Stakes in Food Packaging Requires Right Ink for Printing

When ink is applied to food packaging as a printing material, it must be non-transferable. Prints in food packaging should not use conventional inks. The printing company must ensure that all the solvents in the ink are completely volatilized after printing. The ink needs thorough curing and meet the corresponding industry standards.

::Phasing out of Hazardous Benzene-solvent Inks::
In current printing for plastic food packaging, benzene-soluble chlorinated polypropylene inks are the most widely used, both the manufacture and use of which are in good practice. Such inks are mainly used in the printing of BOPP (biaxially oriented polypropylene) materials, and through gravure. Despite the benefits of good printing suitability & post-press processing performance and fast drying, they also have as big disadvantages. Firstly, the solvent residual in prints from such inks is high and toluene is toxic. Secondly, as the thermal stability of the chlorinated polypropylene is poor, the solvents tend to release chlorine to form hydrogen chloride during the production and storage, which makes the ink more acidic, causing severe corrosion to the printing plate roller. Also, the benzene-soluble ink can destroy the ozone layer and cause harm to workers' health and safety during use. And the residue remaining in the packaged product will cause a certain degree of contamination of the food in the package. This type of inks are phasing out, and regulations for prohibiting or controlling the use of this ink have already been developed in Europe and some other countries.
Because of the problems of benzene-soluble inks, environmentally friendly inks came into being. The use of environmentally-friendly inks does not pollute the environment, nor cause physical harm to the operator, nor incur contamination to the contents.

How to Design Cosmetic Cardboard Gift Boxes

Clothes make the man, that’s also true to products, especially vanity products like cosmetics. Somehow, packaging is vital to commercial success of cosmetics. Humans are visual "animals", we all like beautiful things. Furthermore, if a product does not make any change in packaging for years, then we have good reason to doubt the cosmetics brand. Of course, gift packaging styles vary largely in different target markets. There’s not a single standard that fits everywhere. Below are some opinions based on China markets only.

Therefore, the pattern of the cosmetic packaging boxes must be clear, soft, elegant and beautiful. Don't stuff too many pictures, otherwise it will not highlight the key messages you want to convey. And the color matching of the box is very important, for example, most women like white, red and pink, which are called women's colors, women's products packaged in such color boxes may easily appeal to them. However, most men seem to like serious & solemn black, therefore, black is also called men’s color. Thus men's commodities packaged in black can be favored by men.

Cosmetic color box packaging should accurately convey product information, as well as the shape, color, and pattern used in packaging. Do not violate people's normal habits. After all, the good feeling comes directly from the feeling of the shape, color, pattern and material of the package.

The most important thing is the box design of the cosmetic color packaging box. They can be specially designed according to the shape and size of the cosmetics. Different packaging materials, shapes and patterns are employed based on the cosmetics classification of being high-end of mid-grade. The packaging position of class goes a long way in cosmetics brand image and sales.

While luxury packaging is advisable for cosmetics in China, simple & green packaging is popular in some other countries. There’s no one-for-all packaging solution. All the packaging companies can do is to design and make custom gift packaging boxes that fit the customer’s specific brand positions and market segments.

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Innove supplies various cardboard gift boxes for cosmetic packaging: custom round fragrance gift boxes, rose gold round skincare boxes with telescopic lids, handmade personalized perfume gift boxes, hexagonal shaped explosion boxes, eye primer small cosmetic boxes, small makeup brush gift packaging tubes, skincare packaging boxes with clear lids, bulk lip balm containers and kraft paper push-up lipstick containers etc..