The design of today’s products have changed a lot because of the digital developments. But still there are a lot of possibilities to be unveiled.
Let’s go back a few decades. I remember when I was at the Graphical School in Amsterdam I entered the design study to become a graphical designer. In those day’s designing was mostly handwork. We used pen and ink to draw the letter, glued pictures and text on a sheet and the sheet was used only as a reference for the printing company. Scanning a photo was done by cylindric machines where you had to attach the photo on. Text was made by linotype setters which outputted as photo paper text sheets.
A big difference from today with applications such as Photoshop, Indesign and Illustrator. Scanning photo’s has become totally unnecessary because of the digital camera’s. But still there are many developments going on the design industry.
Let’s take for example a stand up pouch. This product which is a common used flexible plastic packaging item, is not the same as a folder of a newspaper because it’s a 3D object. When designing in Adobe Illustrator the designer must have an idea how the package will look like when you work on your screen. Of course the printer can give a drawing of the package folded out but still the design is just a flat image.
ESKO, a global supplier for flexible packaging solutions, has made for this issue a very efficient plugin for Illustrator called Studio Toolkit for Flexibles, the Flexible Packaging Software. This software makes it possible to design a stand up pouch flat and present it on your screen in 3D. you can see exactly how the design of the stand up pouch looks like and where adjustments have to be made.