Rarely Thought of, Always Needed

June 1, 2018

Whenever anyone asks me what I do for a living, I happily tell them that I am a packaging design engineer in the corrugated industry. And, of course, I get the same response every time: “Huh?!” The easy answer that everyone understands is that I make boxes, but of course, anyone in the industry knows it’s way more than that. I’ve been a design engineer for eight years now, and every day brings something new, designing packaging for anything from bottles of liquor to pet coffins; it gets pretty weird sometimes. Of course, every customer wants the latest and greatest when it comes to making their product stand out. They all have their ideas of what they want the package to look like and how they want it to perform. The trick is getting them something they are willing to pay for. The hardest part in packaging design, I believe, is getting the customer to understand the basics of custom packaging and the price tag behind it. Now, you have your customers with the big-ticket items, which make packaging cost-negligent—spending $10–$100 a package is no big deal. But then you have those customers who have been shopping for their packaging off of Uline and now are ready to get more custom and fancy with their boxes and graphics, but they don’t understand why their price went from $0.10 a box to $1.50 a box. This is where the challenge of every packaging designer comes into play: trying to find a happy balance between the customer’s vision and expectations and a reasonably priced package that performs the necessary functions, all while being able to run in your plant on your machinery with the least number of dirty looks from production. One way around the struggles of customization and cost is a newer trend of digital. Digital printing and manufacturing is catching on like fire in the paper industry. This process helps alleviate the upfront cost of tooling and lets the customer change up sizes and graphics without incurring much change to cost. This allows designers to be a little more creative and not so restricted by what the machines in the plant can do. With this freedom, we are able to give the customers much more of what they want while helping keep the costs down for smaller runs and changing graphics. The best part of designing is getting free reign to use all of your creative knowledge to come up with fun and innovative ways to use corrugated outside of the norm, whether it be interactive packaging or something that isn’t a package at all. Recently, my company entered several entries into the AICC Package Design Competition held at the 2017 Annual Meeting in Las Vegas. Most of the entries were of packaging we had created for customers, from industrial packaging to retail displays, but the two fun projects had nothing to do with packaging at all. One of these projects was a self-promotional item we had given out to customers to help remind them that we are their guiding light for all their packaging needs. Using only corrugated and our digital equipment, we created an 18-inch lighthouse that held a flashlight inside and could light up a room. We actually had some customers use them to light up their offices after a bad ice storm knocked out their power. The other project—the one I’m most fond of—had to do with a recent event, the iMAGINE STEM festival, which took place at a local ballpark. This festival featured interactive exhibits from related organizations and let visitors experience how STEM careers connect with the community and engage with local businesses and schools. Our mission was to show kids the fun side of packaging and that it’s not just all boring moving boxes. The way we did this was to create a game the kids could play, and what game is better than classic Skee-Ball? We created a fully functional Skee-Ball game made entirely of corrugated, complete with a ramp and ball return. Not only was it a hit with the kids that day, but it was also then a hit with the attendees of the AICC Annual Meeting and the judges of the Package Design Competition, winning first place in its category and the People’s Choice Award. All I can say is that I never thought in a million years that what I would be doing for a living would deal with making boxes or with packaging in general, but I will tell you now that I wouldn’t have it any other way. So, the next time someone asks me what I do, I’ll smile and happily tell them all about this industry that is rarely thought of but always needed.