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!

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 is spot color printing in cardboard gift boxes?

Spot color printing(专色印刷) is a printing process involved in offset printing, using a spot color ink (pure or mixed) specifically formulated according Pantone code. It’s a single and extra run other than the general CMYK 4C printing process, and thus requires its own lithographic film.

Then on what occasions is spot color printing necessary? (1) When the cardboard gift boxes designs involve gold or silver color. Golden and silvery colors differs greatly from rest colors and are extremely opaque. Thus they are impossible to realize on the print by regular CMYK offset printing process. In this case, spot color printing can be used to achieve golden or silvery tones (An alternative method to foil stamping).

(2)The prints often comprise uniform color areas of varying gradient colors and text. These color areas and texts can be achieved either by the process of registering in offset printing or by spot color printing. With comprehensive trade-off between improving print quality and saving the runs of registering, it is sometimes necessary to use spot color printing (An alternative method to registering).

Spot color printing uses a non-standard offset ink such as metallic, fluorescent, or hand-mixed ink. Every color needs one lithographic film and an extra printing run. Also, the potential for problems will generally increase. All these will be factored into the total cost of the final gift boxes.

---

[Innove Packaging designs and manufactures window gift boxes, rigid shoulder boxes, decorative drawer gift boxes, hexagon explosion cardboard boxes, luxury nesting apparel gift boxes of 3, and custom odd shaped boxes, etc.]