Paper, Printing, and Cartons: Thinking Outside of the Box
E-flute board gave the cartons for American Eagle Outfitters’ Real for Her and Real for Him fragrances an edgy, hip look. The uncoated E-flute board was vat-dyed in pink for the women’s fragrance and brown for the men’s.
The newest cartons make unwrapping a fragrance truly memorable.
By Marie Redding, Senior EditorForget bright colors and super-shiny finishes. Ac-cording to package designers, the trendiest styles for cartons include uncoated papers and subtle colors.
The cartons for three new fragrances all feature different types of uncoated paperboard, as well as other unique design elements. Although these are three very different packages, all have the common element of sophistication.
Edgy E-Flute
American Eagle Outfitters is a “lifestyle” brand that targets hip 15- to 25-year olds. American Eagle Outfitters’ Real for Her and Real for Him fragrances, which the company describes as its first signature scents, are launching in October. E-flute gave an edgy look to the fragrances’ cartons.
Chad Lavigne of Chad Lavigne LLC designed the packaging. The heavyweight cartons look industrial. The lid flips open on a hinge. “What I love about the box is how it strikes a chord with the rawness that exists within the American Eagle brand. Together, with the modern shape of the bottles, this package makes a great presentation and definitely resonates with its target customer,” Lavigne says.
E-flute is a micro-fluted corrugated board made with three sheets of paper. “The medium sheet is fluted and laminated to the backliner to create a single face, which is then laminated to a matching top sheet. It offers more rigidity and protection than the other flutes available,” says George Filippidis, vice president at Ares Printing and Packaging (Brooklyn, NY), which manufactured and decorated the cartons in house. The company’s assembly division applied the labels.
The women’s carton is nude, and the men’s is brown. “The color palette is truly amazing. Printing these colors was definitely a challenge,” says Lavigne. The uncoated E-flute board was vat-dyed for a more polished, upscale look. “All three sheets of paper within the flute board were dyed in the same vat in order to achieve color consistency throughout the run,” explains Filippidis.
The carton’s design suggests that the customer might want to reuse it by storing other objects inside. Silver hot stamping was used on the outside of the carton for the logo, which adds a luxurious element. A paper label adds another unique touch. “We used a paper label because it is unexpected and adds a little bit more texture to the carton,” says Lavigne.
The natural aspect of the carton complements the modern look of the glass bottles. The women’s bottle is circular, and the men’s is rectangular. Both were supplied by Bormioli Luigi (Horsham, PA).
While creating the packaging, Lavigne was inspired by the look and feel of all of the new accessories being created by the design team at American Eagle Outfitters in New York City. Thus, there is a polished enamel plaque on the front of each bottle. “Imagine the shape that would be formed if an oval-shaped belt buckle was pushed into a piece of warm glass. That is what the bottle reminds me of,” Lavigne says.
Uncoated Elegance
Cheryl Mendelson, designer at Elizabeth Arden, also searched for just the right type of paper when designing the carton for Arden’s new fragrance, With Love. . . Hilary Duff. Mendelson compares the look of the textured uncoated paper that she chose to an artist’s watercolor pad. “I wanted the carton to have an artistic feel. This paper stock complements the whimsical look of the graphics, which are meant to look as if they were drawn by hand,” Mendelson says. The embossed, felted paper stock was supplied by Mohawk Fine Papers Inc. (Cohoes, NY).
The design concept for this fragrance package was based upon Duff’s love of mixing vintage style with modern elements, according to Mendelson. The fragrance is launching in prestige markets and targets young women ages 15 to 24. The outside of the carton’s lid is robin’s-egg blue and was inspired by a color in Duff’s bedroom. Mendelson designed the gold filigree graphic that appears on both the lid and the base. The gold was achieved with embossed hot stamping.
“The scalloped edges of the base were inspired by a vintage lace handkerchief,” says Mendelson. When the top of the carton is lifted off, the base unfolds to reveal the bottle. “We wanted to give the consumer an element of surprise and for her to feel as if she is unwrapping a special present,” says Mendelson. The outside of the base was printed using a pearlescent plum, and the inside is a pearlescent citrine.
To achieve the correct pearlescent citrine color on the base of the With Love… Hilary Duff carton, a combination of two printing technologies were used: lithography, to print the undertones; and flexography, to print the metallics.
The citrine color inside the carton coordinates with the color of the bottle’s translucent Surlyn cap and the color of the juice. The bottle’s citrine cap was faceted to resemble a jewel and was supplied by Jackel International (Hillsborough, NJ). The oval-shaped, multifaceted, heavyweight glass bottle was supplied by HeinzGlas (Linden, NJ). An antiqued-gold metal rope design wraps around the bottle’s collar. “This design element was based on a vintage gold ring from the 1920s. We found it while shopping with Hilary at an antique shop in Burbank [CA],” says Mendelson.
Precise Printing on Uncoated Board
Once the design concept was set for With Love. . . Hilary Duff, the next step was printing the carton. When the Elizabeth Arden team first met with supplier Arkay Packaging (New York City), they brought along a silk-screened carton prototype. Arkay Packaging was able to match the look using a combination of lithography and flexography printing.
The uncoated paper for the With Love…Hilary Duff carton resembles an artist’s watercolor pad.
Printing on uncoated board is a challenge, but it is even more difficult to do on felted board, according to Mitchell Kaneff, president of Arkay Packaging. “Uncoated paper stock usually acts like a sponge, soaking up all of the ink during the printing process,” explains Kaneff. “The embossed texture of this board added further challenges, along with its complicated structural design. The look we were able to achieve could typically only be done using a silk-screening process.”
Walter Shiels, COO of Arkay Packaging, explains how challenges were overcome, without revealing too many secrets. “We incorporated special custom cylinders into our flexo units. These cylinders were needed to apply the right amount of inks and ingredients onto the paper,” Shiels says.
The gold filigree graphics had to be stamped around all of the die-cut, scalloped edges and various angles along the carton’s base. This required incredible precision and precise registration. “We had to achieve a very clean-looking, ultrathin line. Embossed, gold hot stamping also needed to be included. Doing this on a felt-textured board is incredibly difficult,” says Shiels.
The entire carton was wrapped with cellophane. As a final touch, a plum seal resembling a wax seal was gold stamped and embossed with Duff’s initials.
“Everything went very smoothly because the team at Arden is incredibly easy to work and communicate with,” says Kaneff. “Personally, I was also very impressed with how involved Hilary wanted to be. She definitely expressed how she wanted the carton to look every step of the way.”
An Artistic Approach with a Matte Finish
Being involved every step of the way ensures that a carton will end up looking as planned. Perfumer Ineke Rühland was directly involved with every detail of producing her new fragrance collection, Ineke. Rühland is a classically trained perfumer who designed all of the collection’s packaging in collaboration with Helena Seo, a graphic designer located in Sunnyvale, CA.
The Ineke collection consists of three women’s fragrances: After My Own Heart, Balmy Days & Sundays, and Chemical Bonding. The men’s fragrance is named Derring-Do. (The first word of each new Ineke fragrance will start with the next letter of the alphabet.)
The cartons designed for the Ineke collection are interesting for several reasons. The use of uncoated paper complements the natural, pure image that the brand intends to convey. The cartons were also uniquely constructed. A paper stock with a matte finish was used to add to the line’s elegant, artistic look.
“It is very unusual to use uncoated paper stock on a carton. It gives the impression of being unwrapped on store shelves and seems to invite the consumer to feel the natural board,” says Frédéric Cieutat, formerly the export sales manager at the France office of Alliora (New York City), which supplied the cartons.
When deciding on the decoration, Rühland regarded the cartons as if they were blank canvases meant to be filled with meaningful works of art. Photographs, words, illustrations, and even poems that look torn from the pages of a book were all printed as separate images on the sides of the carton. Lines of text look like they were randomly placed. These elements all come together to explain the story behind the creation of each particular fragrance.
The men’s fragrance carton is dark gray and printed with black and white photographs. The women’s fragrance cartons are white and gray, with color photographs. The name Ineke was written on a small, self-adhesive label made of fabric. It was placed inside a debossed square with beveled edges on the front of the carton’s base. The label was supplied by Paxar (White Plains, NY), a company that mainly serves the textile industry.
“I wanted the carton to be multitextured, and the fabric label helps to achieve this,” says Rühland. FMI (Allentown, PA) was the contract manufacturer in charge of assembly. “They are fantastic and very important to a small company. They put it all together,” says Rühland.
An Innovative Type of Construction
Setup boxes small enough to fit a single fragrance can be hard to find. Instead, fragrance brand Ineke was able to create folding cartons with the sturdiness of a setup box.
The folding cartons used for the Ineke collection are almost as sturdy as setup boxes. A clever design made this possible.
“To me, a sturdy box conveys the feeling of luxury. When you’re a niche brand and don’t have that name recognition, the most important thing you can offer your customers is high quality,” explains Rühland.
When Rühland first decided she wanted a very rigid box for the fragrances, she began by looking at setup boxes. “Many of the setup box manufacturers can’t produce boxes small enough to fit a single fragrance. The ones that were small enough had a nice solidity but lacked sophistication,” she says.
The team at Alliora proposed the idea of creating a semirigid box with an inner liner in the base that would be more rigid than a traditional carton. “It is a new type of construction. It is produced as a carton but is almost as rigid as a setup box,” explains Cieutat. “It’s not like a traditional setup box because only one layer of paper is used,” adds Rühland.
The design of the outer carton can be described as a box within a box. The elongated lid slides up and off. The shorter base is attached to a taller, more-rigid inner liner, which is a darker color than the base. This piece extends about three inches above the base, covering about two-thirds of the bottle. A hidden foam platform inside lifts the bottle up to reveal the top portion of it, creating a dramatic presentation.
The same cylindrical bottle was used for all of the fragrances in the collection. The bottle was supplied by Saint-Gobain Desjonquères (New York City) and was decorated by USS Corp. (Newark, NJ) using a combination of ceramic printing and organic color sprays. A stainless-steel band, supplied by Italix (Santa Clara, CA), was glued to an indented area on the bottle. Rexam Dispensing Systems (Purchase, NY) supplied the low-profile pump. Axilone USA (New York City) supplied the cap, which was compression molded using Bakelite. A matte finish was built into the cap’s mold, and the name Ineke was debossed on top.
All of the packaging for the Ineke fragrance collection was based on an “ornamental modernist” approach to design, according to Rühland. The cartons truly help to showcase the fragrances and succeed in the dual purpose of telling each fragrance’s story while conveying a feeling of luxury to the consumer.
Wrapping It Up
The examples above have shown how upscale E-flute can look when all the right design elements come together. It always takes a collaborative effort between everyone involved—designers, suppliers, and marketing teams. Everyone works toward the common goal of creating a carton that works with the design of the fragrance bottle, the type of juice inside the bottle, and the brand’s image. In the end, the greatest hope is that the package will accomplish its most difficult task—attracting customers.