How a box gets made.
- 01
The Sheet Is Printed Before It Is Cut
Artwork goes down on a full sheet of board while it is still rectangular. Nothing on the press knows where the box will fold. That is why registration between the print and the cut is set separately, and why a shifted sheet shows as artwork running off a flap.
- 02
A Steel Rule Die Does Cut and Crease Together
Strips of steel are bent to your outline and set into plywood, with sharp rule where the board must cut and blunt rule where it must only crease. One stroke of the press does both, which is why the cut and the fold can never be out of alignment with each other.
- 03
Creasing Crushes the Fibres on Purpose
A crease rule presses a channel into the board so the fibres on the inside of the bend compress and the outside stretches. Without that channel, coated board cracks along the fold and the white core shows through the print.
- 04
Gluing Happens on One Seam
Most box styles are glued along a single tab while flat, then folded shut. One seam means one pass through the gluer and a box that still ships flat. A box needing two glued seams costs noticeably more to make.
- 05
It Ships Flat and Nests
Flat blanks stack into a fraction of the volume of made up boxes, which is most of the reason packaging freight is affordable at all. Rigid boxes are the exception, and that exception is expensive.
- 06
A Plain Dummy Before the Die
We cut and fold a blank sample by hand in your chosen board and put the product in it, because the only reliable test of a box is the thing it has to hold.
The one thing to send us early is the product, or its exact dimensions with the packing material included. A box drawn to the product alone is always slightly too small once tissue, a bag or a foam insert goes in, and that discovery comes after the die is made.
Start with custom boxes, food packaging, or product labels.
