When a packaging order slips, the cause is rarely the press. It is more often the artwork: a file that arrives in RGB, has no bleed, uses fonts that were never outlined, or calls for foil without saying where the foil goes. None of these are hard to fix, but each one costs a round of emails back and forth, and a round of emails is usually a week.
Why box artwork is not like ordinary print
A business card is a rectangle with ink on it. A box is a flat sheet that gets cut, folded, glued and sometimes wrapped, which means the artwork has to describe two things at once: what is printed and where the structure is. That second part is the dieline — the cutting and creasing outline — and it has to sit in the file without being printed.
There is a third layer too, and it is the one most often missing. Foil, spot UV and embossing are separate passes on separate machines, and each needs its own shape defined in the file. They cannot be inferred from the printed colours, because a gold logo and a gold-looking printed yellow are made in completely different ways.
| Item | What we need | Why it matters | If wrong |
|---|---|---|---|
| File format | Vector: AI, PDF or CDR, text outlined | Scales without losing edge quality | Redraw required |
| Colour mode | CMYK, with spot colours named | RGB values have no ink equivalent | Whole run shifts |
| Bleed | 3 mm beyond the trim line | Cutting always has tolerance | White edges appear |
| Dieline layer | Separate layer, not flattened | The tool is cut from this outline | Tooling has to be redone |
| Finishing layer | Own spot colour for foil, UV, emboss | Each pass is a separate machine | Placement guessed, then wrong |
| Images | 300 dpi at final printed size | Web images fall apart when scaled | New artwork needed |
Six mistakes that each cost about a week
One: fonts not converted to outlines. A font that exists on your computer may not exist on ours, and a substituted font reflows the whole layout. Converting text to paths removes the problem entirely, and takes one command in any design application.
Two: artwork built in RGB. Screens make colour with light; presses make it with ink. An RGB file converted to CMYK at the last minute almost always comes out duller, particularly in bright blues and greens. Build in CMYK from the start, or tell us the Pantone reference you are matching.
Three: no bleed, or bleed inside the trim. A cutting blade has tolerance. Without artwork extending past the cut line, a millimetre of movement leaves a white sliver along the edge. Three millimetres is the standard allowance, and it costs nothing to add.
Four: the dieline flattened into the artwork. Once the cutting outline is merged into the printed layer, it can no longer be separated cleanly, and the tool cannot be made from it. Keep it on its own layer, in a spot colour, and leave it there.
Five: foil or UV shown only as a visual. A gold rectangle in the preview is not a foil shape. It has to be defined as its own spot colour so the plate can be cut to it. This is the single most common cause of a finishing pass landing in the wrong place.
Six: artwork approved without a dieline check. Brand guidelines are drawn flat; boxes are not. Panels that look adjacent on a screen can end up on opposite faces once folded. We send the artwork placed on the dieline for approval precisely so this gets caught before tooling.
The finishing layer deserves its own note
Foil, spot UV and embossing are priced and produced separately, and each one is driven by a shape in the file. Give each finish its own spot colour, name it clearly, and keep it off the print layer. If two finishes overlap — foil over UV, say — say so, because the sequence changes both the cost and the result.
One rule matters more than the rest: finishing must avoid the fold lines. Foil laid across a crease cracks after the box is formed a few times, and UV over a fold can flake. This has to be resolved when the artwork is placed against the dieline, not after the plates are cut.
Standard specifications
| Item | What we accept | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| File formats | AI, PDF, CDR, EPS (vector preferred) | Layered files, text converted to paths |
| Colour mode | CMYK, spot colours named by Pantone code | RGB files need conversion first |
| Bleed | 3 mm beyond the trim line | Keep text and logos 3 mm inside trim |
| Dieline | Separate layer, supplied by us | Do not flatten or delete |
| Finishing | Own spot colour per finish | Foil, UV and emboss each need one |
| Images | 300 dpi at final size, CMYK | Web-resolution files cannot be used |
| Proof | Digital proof for layout, press proof for colour | A digital proof is not a colour standard |
Four things to confirm before sending artwork
First, ask for the dieline before you start designing — building artwork to the wrong outline means rebuilding it. Second, confirm whether your brand colour runs as CMYK or as a named spot colour, since that decision belongs in the file, not in the quotation. Third, give every finish its own layer with a named spot colour, and say if any two overlap. Fourth, approve against the artwork placed on the dieline, not against a flat brand mock-up — panels that look adjacent when flat are often on opposite faces once the box is formed.
Related reading: Dieline Guide / Hot Foil vs Spot UV vs Embossing / White Dummy Sample / Packaging Quote
Structures: Rigid Gift Box | Folding Carton | Flat-Pack Folding Box / Brand Colour Match
GDF — send the artwork and we will check it against the dieline before anything goes to tooling.
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Website: www.szgoldy.com