The Design ' Real Estate '

The space on a design artwork is in no way less precious than the Real Estate , no matter what the design is , one is always at a crunch for space on the artwork .

Firstly the design elements have to be incorporated in totality, as most often than not we would want to give the maximum space to the design and the branding elements. The next most important are the mandatory text, which gets still multiplied, if the brand has to be sold in several countries. There are a whole lot of Consumer communication related text which also needs to be brought in for effective product understanding or for the product usage explanation.

The Creativity lies in ensuring a right balance of building in the Brand design features and the mandatory. One should not be compensated at the cost of the other, just like in a real estate project, where the aesthetics and the luxury elements have to be balanced with the necessities and the absolute essentials.

Very often the Packaging Designers work, without a complete understanding of all the mandatory required and without a clear estimation of the area that they will need to allocate in the artwork space. Consequently it becomes a huge exercise trying to squeeze in the mandatory and the absolute essentials once the design is finalized. Given the fact that we need to keep the mandatory , the design more often than not gets compromised.

Understanding of what text to put on which panel is another aspect that requires Creative skills and and for that one needs to have a clear understanding of what needs to be put upfront and what can possibly go onto the lower or the not so prominent panels.

The role of the Technical resources and the Machine supplier comes in , by providing for the elements that would perhaps get printed online or some specific spaces need to be allocated for the machine printed text.

The challenge for the Packaging developer is to 'See through' and work the size, shape, graphics etc keeping in mind the value of each little area of space on the artwork. The challenge for the Brief provider is to ensure that all details are provided and do not keep changing as the project keeps moving forward.

Very often it is seen that it it not impossible for some Creative experts to build in a whole lot of mandatory text and yet not compromise on their design, even though the information comes in later in the day. However one is then leaving it to chance and compromises, rather than ensuring success by design.