Three projects, told through the material and structure decisions that shipped, not the concepts that didn't.

This is not a portfolio wall of finished shots. Every case below names the paper stock, the closure, the print method, or the fold — the things a packaging design consultant actually decides — and none of it carries a price, because scope varies by SKU count and material.

Hand holding a finished glass bottle with a printed label against window light — Cold-brew lineLabel + closure system

Beverage · label system

A cold-brew bottling line that needed to read as one family across four flavors on a cooler shelf.

The client had four flavors bottled at four different times over two years, each with a slightly different label vendor and no shared color logic. The brief named the exact cooler door they needed to win: a regional grocer's cold case, three shelves, sharing space with eleven competitors. We built one label system across all four flavors using a shared type hierarchy and a single flavor-coded band of color, printed on a wet-strength paper stock built to survive condensation, with a matte varnish over the print to stop it from fogging under cooler lights.

Print ran digitally at low volume for the first two flavors and offset once volume justified the plate cost — a tradeoff we flagged at the brief stage rather than defaulting to offset and eating the plate charge on runs under 5,000 units. A member of the studio was at the printer for the first sheet of the offset run.

Format: Pressure-sensitive label, 4 SKUs, shared die
Material: Wet-strength paper stock, matte varnish
Print: Digital short run, offset above 5,000 units
Price basis: Quoted per SKU, not disclosed here

Deliverables: four print-ready label files, one shared dieline, one guideline addendum covering the flavor color code.

How packaging structure work like this is scoped

Finished folding carton package standing under soft studio light — Snack carton systemStructural + graphic

Food · folding carton

A snack carton redesign that had to cut case-pack cost without shrinking the front-facing panel.

This one arrived as a packaging problem wearing a branding complaint. The client's actual issue was a case-pack inefficiency — their existing carton wasted nearly a fifth of the shipping case as dead air — and the graphics were getting blamed for weak shelf presence that was really a structure problem. We re-engineered the carton as a reverse-tuck box with a shortened depth and a wider front panel, testing three rounds of plain-board mockups before any color went near it. The redesign held the front-facing area within two percent of the original while cutting the case-pack waste the client's warehouse team had flagged.

Graphics went on last: a single dominant flavor color per SKU, a debossed logo lockup rather than foil (foil doesn't hold up on 18pt SBS board at this run length), and a nutrition panel built around the client's existing regulatory copy so it didn't need a redesign review. Six SKUs shared one dieline family with a swapped front panel plate.

Format: Reverse-tuck folding carton, 6 SKUs, one dieline family
Material: 18pt SBS board, debossed logo, no foil
Print: Offset, six-color plus varnish
Price basis: Quoted per packaging system, not disclosed here

Deliverables: dieline family, six print-ready PDFs, structural test report, updated packaging section of the guideline book.

How packaging structure work like this is scoped

Macro close-up of a foil-stamped label edge catching warm light — Spice line relaunchFoil-stamp detail

Specialty food · label graphics

A spice line relaunch where the whole identity rode on one foil-stamped mark holding up at three-inch scale.

Small-format labels punish sloppy type. This client's jars run at roughly three by two inches, and the old logo — a fine-line illustrated mark — turned to mud at that size once printed. The relaunch rebuilt the mark as a solid, single-weight form specifically so it would foil-stamp cleanly at small scale, tested at actual size on a proof press before it went anywhere near the guideline book. Copper foil over a kraft-toned uncoated stock gave the line a warmer metallic than a standard gold foil would have, which mattered more here than following category convention, since every competitor on that shelf already runs gold.

We did not redesign the jar itself — the client owns a shared mold across their spice range and a new jar wasn't in scope or budget — so this project stayed a label and identity job, not a structural one, and we said so plainly rather than upselling a mold change nobody asked for.

Format: Wrap label, 3in x 2in jar face, 9 SKUs
Material: Uncoated kraft-toned stock, copper foil stamp
Print: Offset base print, separate foil-stamp pass
Price basis: Fixed project fee, disclosed to the client only

Deliverables: vector logo rebuilt for foil, nine print-ready label files, bound guideline update covering the foil spec.

How identity work like this is scoped

None of these three carried a guaranteed sales result, and none of them ever will — a studio can control the file, the material, and the print, not what happens once the case hits the loading dock. If your situation looks close to one of these, the project finder will point you to the right service page in under a minute; if it doesn't look close to anything above, send us the specifics directly.

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