Design & Printing on Corrugated Paper Gift Boxes

1. Strength: The flute design is the primary content of the strength. The corrugated cardboard includes single-flute and multiple-flute layers. And for each flute layer, there are 3 varying profiles to be chosen from: flute A, B & C. Multiple-flute boxes usually come in mixing flute profiles. Designers must choose the right flute type and profiles according to the pre-design knowledge.

2. Material selection: the choice of cardboard material is an important part of the strength design, it not only affects the printing effect, but also has a bearing on the physical properties of the finished corrugated boxes. For example, there is a close relationship between the water content of the paper and the strength of the carton. While choosing paper to use, different weather conditions must be considered. And paperboard produced must also meet the requirements in terms of physical properties such as breakage resistance, side pressure and adhesion.

An important reason for the popularity of cardboard packaging is their environmental benefits. Thus the use of consumables like ink, additives, polishes, and the recycling properties of paperboard itself must be in compliance with environmental requirements. And when used for packaging food, medicine or children's toys, the cardboard boxes must also meet the requirements of hygiene, health and safety. Of course, in case of export, it is necessary to consider the relevant laws and regulations of the destination country.

3. Size: In designing the box size, in addition to the reasonable length, width and height ratio according to the contents, designers should also consider the right container types to make full use of packaging space.

4. Printing process problems: designers need to pay attention to the difference between various printing processes. The printing methods commonly used in corrugated boxes in China mainly include offset printing, silkscreen printing, flexo printing, and gravure printing etc. Changes in printing methods directly affect other processes, and even result in change of print materials. For example, it’s difficult to use  water-based ink flexographic printing over coated  paper. When using the popular flexo printing process, it is necessary to pay attention to the layout.

With flexo printing, thin lines, small texts, and patterns with dots should not be arranged on a layout with a large-area flush color background. Because the full-page flush color background printing requires a larger printing pressure, it is easy to make small text and pattern deformation, causes printing problems like blurring, broken lines, missing font strokes, and dot loss, etc.  and will result in premature wearing or damage of the printing plate. If they had to be in the same page, then the exposure time should be extended to improve the hardness and printing durability of the plate at the fine image.

In order to overcome the unevenness and roughness of the cardboard surface, the printing plate is required to be wear-resistant, strong in impact resistance, moderate in hardness, good in resilience after being pressed, uniform in ink and thickness. Based on the pattern, the size of the text, lines and the material of the corrugated board, change the layout, hardness and making methods of the flexo plates accordingly. When the corrugated board is of poor quality or with full page background printing, thicker and softer flexo plate should be used. When the corrugated board has good quality or printing fine patterns and small characters, choose harder and thinner or resin flexo plates.

If the printing surface of the corrugated board is uneven, rough, warping and with other problems, it may cause filling in(糊版), crush, wearing or damage to the flexographic resin plate. Therefore, the quality of the base paper should be strictly controlled in the printing process of cardboard gift boxes.

Custom Designs of Cardboard Gift Box Packaging

Modeling and structural design are an important part of commodity packaging. Packaging designers must ensure that the box structure has sufficient strength, hardness and resistance to environments. There are two things to be addressed: firstly, the primary function is to protect the products, and secondly, it should meet the important characteristics of modern packaging, such as transportation and processing etc.

Qualified cardboard gift boxes start with the right structural design. Designers must not only truly understand the customer's intentions, but also be familiar with the subsequent processing techniques. Only in this way can the customer's intention be converted into a qualified packaging, and the subsequent processing of the product can be smoothly carried out. Before the design begins, the designer should understand the nature, shape, size and weight of the contents; the arrangement of the contents, the transportation method, the stacking method; the storage environment, the transportation route and time, and the box type and materials.

Once the needed information as mentioned above has been determined, it is also important to know whether the desired box is transport-oriented or sales-oriented. Sales-oriented paper gift boxes fall into the category of commercial packaging, and focus on the appearance of the boxes, and printing needs to be considered. Transportation-oriented boxes are industrial packaging. It is necessary to consider the requirements of compression and shock resistance. Thus, designers must determine the position of the opening and die cutting without affecting the strength. In case of reusability, they also need to consider the efficiency of packing and operation.

Five major technologies worthy of attention in the field of paper packaging's printing

Below listed are the five major technologies worthy of attention in the field of paper packaging's printing:
1. Offset printing online hot stamping technology
Traditional hot stamping requires a special metal hot stamping plate. The hot stamping material is transferred to the surface of the printing material by heating and pressing, and the speed is relatively slow to feed the paper, which is difficult to be hot stamped with the offset printing. Offset online hot stamping technology is to paste the image to be stamped onto the surface of the substrate through the adhesive under normal temperature conditions. The realization method is to directly use two units of the original offset printing machine, a set of printing glue layer and a set of transfer metal hot stamping foil.

Advantages: hot stamping speed, high efficiency; one-time paper-printing and metal foil transfer digital printing, high registration accuracy; the resolution of cold-hot plate can reach the resolution of offset printing plate, hot stamping can be printed At normal temperature, it can be stamped on the surface of temperature-sensitive materials without heating; saving energy.

2. Web hot stamping technology
The web bronzing machine has taken the lead in mature application in China's cigarette package market, and will achieve greater development as the market demand for high-efficiency, high-quality hot stamping jobs increases. At present, the more mature enterprises are: Changde Jinpeng Printing Co., Ltd., Yunnan Qiaotong Packaging and Printing Co., Ltd., Yunnan Yuxi Printing Co., Ltd., Chongqing Hongsheng Printing Co., Ltd., Yunnan Jiujiu Printing Co., Ltd. and Dongguan Zhiyuan Color Printing Co., Ltd. Company, etc. Enterprises that often encounter large batches, high bronzing process requirements, and short customer delivery schedules can focus on web bronzing technology.

3. Fixed length stretching composite printing to avoid laser seam seam technology
Laser holographic laser transfer paper is a new type of packaging material that is widely used in the packaging and printing industry at home and abroad. However, a major problem is that it is easy to produce laser-type seam RIP when printing on a rotary gravure printing machine, which causes great waste. At present, there are mainly two fixed-length stretch composite printing avoidance laser seam sewing technology solutions.

Packaging and printing companies can make reasonable choices based on their own funds and actual production. If the company has a rotary gravure printing equipment, it can use the off-line solution to suppress the irregularities, and purchase the laser aluminized transfer paper that can avoid the seams from the composite paper manufacturer, and only need to modify the paper feeding mechanism of the original rotary printing equipment. Yes, the investment risk and technical risk of the company are small.

4. Laser pattern imprint transfer technology
The laser pattern imprinting transfer technology is a high-tech that integrates decoration, anti-counterfeiting and environmental protection. Its outstanding advantages are: it meets environmental protection requirements, and the anti-counterfeiting effect is good, and the production cost is reduced.

5. Combined printing technology
In a sense, a combination printing press is no longer simply a printing device, but a streamlined production line that integrates multiple printing and finishing processes.

Combination printing is a combination of various printing process technologies, that is, integrating multiple printing methods (such as flexo, offset, gravure, screen printing, or even digital printing) and post-press processing on the same production line ( Such as light, film, die-cutting, indentation, hot stamping, embossing, etc., combine the advantages of various printing and post-press processing methods, and complement each other to obtain the best printing effect.

Paper Will Replace Plastic in Future Food Packaging

Paper and paper containers play a very important role in the modern packaging industry. In China, paper materials account for about 40% of the total packaging materials. From the perspective of development trends, the amount of paper packaging will increase. The fact that paper packaging materials stand out in the packaging field is attributed to a series of unique advantages, such as: good processing performance, excellent printing performance, certain mechanical properties, easy compound processing, good hygiene and safety, wide source of raw materials, and easy formation. Mass production, variety, low cost, light weight, easy to transport, waste can be recycled; and plastic used as packaging material is an important symbol of modern technology development, rich in raw materials, low cost, excellent performance, nearly 40 The fastest growing and large amount of packaging materials in the world in the past year. However, plastic packaging materials have obvious shortcomings in food packaging, and there are some problems in terms of hygiene and safety and environmental pollution caused by packaging waste.

Paper will replace plastic in future food packaging 
According to some data, the amount of plastic used for food packaging accounts for 1/4 of the total output of plastics. It can be said that when plastics used for food packaging appear, there will be garbage. In supermarkets and shopping malls, many food packaging is made of plastic. The plastic inflatable packaging of puffed food can prevent moisture, oxidation, scent, block sunlight and prevent extrusion, but such a large package is a great waste in resources; there are far more instant packaging, plastic packaging The packaging price of paper bowls (or barrels), the market price of bowls or barrels of instant noodles is generally higher than 1/3 of the sales price of instant noodles with the same quality, but this type of packaging is convenient to eat, especially when traveling. After the lid is opened, it can be eaten directly by hot water, and it is not necessary to bring other containers, so it is very popular among consumers.

As environmental protection requirements increase, it is necessary for consumers to eliminate outdated packaging. Improvements in plastic materials are also a priority. The food on the market segment can be used as much as possible in paper packaging to reduce the waste of plastic and environmental pollution, which is also beneficial for future generations.

The 'Crowning' of Paper packaging
The rapid development of China's food industry provides a broad space for paper packaging. It is expected that the circular economy will become the main mode of development of the packaging industry in the future, the recycling of packaging waste resources will be industrialized, the green packaging materials will be vigorously developed and developed, and the packaging infrastructure industry will also accelerate development.

The world of packaging in the future is made of paper, and the world calls for green packaging and cherish our homes. Paper technology will be widely used in the packaging industry. Green packaging will become the main trend of the development of the bakery food packaging industry in the future. However, paper-based wood, paper-based plastic, paper-based glass, and paper-based metal have become sustainable. The consensus of development. Paper materials have more renewable natural materials and more environmentally friendly recycling, fully demonstrating the development potential of paper materials.

Under the trend of homogenization of various commodities today, packaging has become an important factor in the third-class sales and brand image after product quality and after-sales service. Packaging from the original product protection and easy to use functions, to increase the value of goods, brand building, and promote sales. Custom packaging design has become an important part of the merchandising program. As the first of the four major packaging types, paper packaging will be more diverse in shapes and patterns,  more creative,  with the continuous development of paper materials and processing technology.

Food Packaging Market worth $305,955.1 Million by 2019

The food packaging market is projected to reach a value of $305,955.1 million by 2019. Asia-Pacific is projected to be the largest market and is projected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecasted period. In this region, the Indian market is estimated to be the second-fastest.

The Food packaging market is driven by the trend of consumers shifting towards specialty & processed food, advancement in food packaging material, marketing strategies of companies, increase in the demand for food packaging material products, and consumer awareness in developing economies. The key market players adopted expansions, new product launches, agreements, joint ventures, partnerships, and acquisition as their preferred strategies to sustain competition in the market. The different technologies used to manufacture processed food packaging products, and an introduction of a wide variety of food packaging types for developing materials of food packaging have further driven the market.

Food Packaging Market Size, By Geography, 2014–2019 ($Million)

 The report "Food Packaging Market by Material (Paper & Board, Plastic, Glass, Metal), Type (Rigid, Semi-Rigid, Flexible), Application (Dairy, Bakery, Confectionery, Convenience Foods, Fruits, Vegetables, Meat, Sauces, Dressings) - Global Trends & Forecast to 2019", defines and segments the food retail packaging market on the basis of various materials, types, applications, and regions, with analyses and projections of the market size of each of these segments, in terms of value. It also identifies the driving and restraining factors for the food packaging market with analyses of its trends, opportunities, burning issues, and winning imperatives.

This report studies the marketing and development strategies, along with the product portfolios of leading companies. It also includes the profiles of leading companies such as Amcor Ltd. (Australia), Rock-Tenn Company (U.S.), Crown Holdings, Inc. (U.S.). The key players in the market invest in the expansion of their facilities to fulfill the needs of emerging markets and are actively investing in R&D activities to gain a competitive edge through new product launches.

Source: MarketsandMarkets Analysis