OUGD504 - Design for print - prototype development and artwork design

OUGD504 - Design for print - prototype development with designs

Following on from my initial net assembly session and idea generation, I have decided to do a Russian-doll/ pass the parcel style print pack. I have decided on my three boxes: the massive octagon box (no 8 in initial ideas), the rose box inside of it (box 3), a butterfly-top box inside of that (box 4) and inside of that, a never-ending card design. In this post I will show how I have experimented and developed the boxes and card so they have the correct dimensions for each other and have amended the shapes to work more effectively. 

Never ending Card Design

I started with the smallest of features ... the never ending card design. I wanted to ensure that this vital piece was an appropriate size for user interactivity, that there was enough space for some cool features and that it wasn't too small for wear and tear.

I decided that the size should be 100mm by 100mm to fulfil all these points. I printed off and assembled a mini- prototype off the internet to help me understand how it worked and how to design the artwork for it.

Then, to the correct dimensions, I created a really rough prototype with some faint sketches to work out what would go where!

Development of the artwork for this can be found here.

Butterfly box

I loved the opening mechanism of this box when I first assembled it - so that's all that I salvaged from the original design... 

I just made it a tiny, short box - but I found that the lid, although the same size as the walls, was too flimsy and needed to be taller. This prototype was out of paper, meaning it would only be worse in the final card design.

So I made the opening mechanism walls a lot deeper - higher than the walls of the box itself when opened. Somehow, when flipped over, the walls don't touch the bottom of the box. I had to make sure that the height and volume of the new design was no higher than the volume of the Rose box! Because they were all similar shapes IE cubes, it wasn't as difficult as previously thought. I just had to keep printing off different sizes and pick which fitted the best in terms of height, and widths were calculated just using measurements.

This deeper opening mechanism was a lot easier to open by my peers and withstood handling opening and closing multiple times.

Development of the artwork for this can be found here.

Fitting Butterfly box inside of Rose Box

As you can see - the Butterfly box with it's deeper walls and new dimensions means that it fits perfectly sideways (the way I have chosen to do it in the Octagon box with the Rose box) inside of the Rose Box.

Rose Box

Named after its opening/ closing mechanism, this box needed a lot of work. The hooks didn't reach each other, and I didn't really care for the thorn design on the edges:

Multiple flimsy paper print-outs later, I had rounded and accentuated the hooks, and made the walls they are attached to larger, as I found this meant they could reach each other better.

I also changed it from a rectangular based box to a square box, and changed the dimensions to fit snugly inside of the large Octagon box.

However, once I had finished I realised that I had changed the opening mechanism completely from it's original image in the book I retrieved it from. Each of the hooks once hooks over the hook on it's left and so on. Now, I had changed it to two layers of two hooks interlinking.

This meant that I could create a design that had a 2-part reveal feature! IE, open first layer, reveal second layer.

The inside of the box still needs work - it doesn't sit flat very well!

I wanted this box to be the second box - IE the first box the user sees inside of the initial packaging. This meant that not only must it fit snugly inside the Octagon, but also accommodate the smaller butterfly packaging.

Development of the artwork for this can be found here.

Octagon Box

The Octagon box didn't need much changing about it, other than scale. However, that's easier said than done!

To accommodate the 100mm x 100mm never ending card design inside of the butterfly box, inside of the rose box inside it, the Octagon when flat had to be about A1 in size! I decided to wedge everything in side on, so it wouldn't rattle around.

In the image above I am calculating how much room, realistically my Octagon box would give, whilst considering size of folds, and a mm or two for stock etc.

Development of the artwork for all of these pieces can be found here.