The packaging design process step by step: brief, shelf audit, concepts, range rollout and pre-press, with timelines, a brief template and a sign-off sheet.
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Drafted with AI tools; researched, edited and approved by Fidal P. Our editorial policy
On this page · 9 sections
- What are the steps, and how long does each take?
- What goes in a packaging design brief?
- What happens in a shelf and marketplace audit?
- How many concepts, and how do you judge them?
- How does a range roll out across sizes and formats?
- What happens in pre-press?
- Who signs off the artwork, and how?
- Frequently asked questions
- Start with the brief
We design packaging and labels for food and FMCG brands, and this is the process we use, with the four design steps and timelines as our packaging page publishes them. Below each step you'll find what you need to send, what can go wrong and how to check it, plus a brief template and an artwork sign-off sheet you can copy.
Packaging delays often start outside the design itself: a nutrition value that arrives late, a printer's dieline that changes after the artwork is final, or nobody knowing who signs off. A clear process moves those surprises to the start.
What are the steps, and how long does each take?#
Steps 2 to 5 are the four steps on our packaging design page. Its planning timelines are two to three weeks for a single label to be print-ready, and three to five weeks for a full range with structure and bilingual versions, plus printer proofing time. What the printer needs for plates or cylinders, and how long the material takes to arrive, is the printer's to quote; ask on day one.
The biggest variable is usually feedback. Every day a round of comments waits is a day added to the schedule, and a new decision-maker who arrives in round three can send the work back to concepts.
What goes in a packaging design brief?#
A good brief answers the questions a designer would otherwise ask over weeks of calls. Copy this template and fill in every row, even with "not decided yet": that is useful information too.
Two rows decide the most. "Where it's sold" tells the designer whether the pack must read from two metres away on a shelf, at thumbnail size on a phone, or both. "Legal inputs" decides whether the artwork can be finished on time, because the label can't be closed without them. If you don't yet have a licence number or lab values, say so in the brief and plan the artwork around their dates. Our guide to packaging design costs shows how the same brief turns into a quote.
What happens in a shelf and marketplace audit?#
The audit answers one question: what will the shopper see around your pack? We study the category on real shelves and on marketplaces. In a store, that means photographing the whole section at the distance a shopper stands, noting which colours own the category, which formats dominate, and what you can read from two metres. Online, it means searching the category the way a buyer would and capturing the results grid, because there your pack is one thumbnail among dozens.
Selling online adds a legal reason to plan listing images early. Under regulation 4(2) of FSSAI's Labelling and Display Regulations (opens in a new tab), food sold through e-commerce must have its mandatory label information provided to the consumer before sale, except the batch or lot number and the dates, so your listing has to carry the back panel's details as well as the front's, and clear images of both are the simplest way. Our FSSAI labelling checklist covers what that panel must hold.
The audit ends with a short list of gaps: the colour no competitor uses, the claim nobody makes clearly, the format that would stand out. Concepts start from those gaps, not from a mood board.
How many concepts, and how do you judge them?#
Two or three, each a genuinely different direction, shown on the hero SKU as renders in shelf context rather than as flat artwork. More options rarely help; they usually mean nobody has decided what the pack must do.
Judge them with tests, not taste:
- The two-metre test. Every front panel we design has to pass it: from shelf distance, can you tell the brand, what the product is and which variant it is?
- The thumbnail test. Shrink the render to the size of a marketplace or quick-commerce tile. If the product and variant disappear, the design has to change, not the photography.
- The legal fit test. Lay the mandatory text on the back panel at its minimum sizes before the front is approved. A concept that only works if the ingredients shrink below the legal minimum isn't a concept.
- The one-claim test. Count the claims on the front. One you can prove beats five you can't, and FSSAI's rules on words like "natural" and "pure" apply to every one of them.
Choose one route, then let the designer refine it on the hero SKU before the rollout begins. Changing direction during the rollout is one of the most expensive mistakes in the process, because every SKU then gets redrawn.
How does a range roll out across sizes and formats?#
The rollout turns one good pack into a system. The rules get written down first: where the logo sits, how variants are told apart, how the legal panel is laid out, and what changes from one SKU to the next. Then every format is drawn to those rules.
Two ranges from our own work show the idea, as their project pages describe them. For Proteinuts, a peanut butter brand, the system runs from a rounded green logotype to a tub label system in which a white tub carries a brand-green band for Pineapple Crunchy and a rich brown band for Dark Chocolate, so flavour reads from across the aisle, and on to product renders, truck livery, a billboard and a slow-motion product film. For Tea Today, a tea café brand for the Gulf, shared placement and colour rules carry the identity across its takeaway range of cups, burger and snack boxes, paper snack bags, food wrapping paper and a delivery box, so new items slot straight in; a round logo lockup is sized for lids, stickers and box tops, with a QR code planned into the box artwork.
Range rules worth writing down:
- A fixed grid for the legal panel, so a new flavour changes only the numbers and the colour.
- One variant signal, usually colour, used the same way on every size.
- Naming rules for variants and sizes, so the fifteenth SKU sounds like the first.
- Size steps: what scales and what stays fixed when a 200 g tub becomes a 1 kg one.
- Language rules, if a second language or a Gulf version is coming; our guide to packaging for Kerala brands going to the Gulf covers the Arabic label rules.
Our guide to brand guidelines shows how to record rules like these so printers and future designers can follow them.
What happens in pre-press?#
Pre-press is where a design becomes something a press can print. It's unglamorous, and it's where reprints are prevented. On our packaging page, this step is "dielines, colour, barcodes and legal text checked; proofs approved with your printer before the run". In practice that means:
- The dieline. The converter's flat template of the pack, with cut lines, folds, glue areas and bleed. Get the converter's latest version before artwork starts, and confirm it again before files go out. For labels on jars, bottles and pouches, our guide to product label design covers sizing and placement.
- Colour. Agree how each colour will be printed, whether as a mix of process inks or as a spot colour, and check it on the actual material, because the same artwork looks different on white board, kraft paper and metallised film.
- Barcodes. Barcode numbers come from GS1 India (opens in a new tab), the only body authorised to issue barcodes starting with 890 in India, and its implementation guide sets the size, quiet zones and colours a barcode needs; the label design guide gives the figures. Scan-test it on a proof.
- Legal text. Every mandatory line at or above its minimum height, on a plain background, checked against the final formulation.
- A coding patch. An unprinted, unvarnished area where the packing line prints the batch number and dates.
- Plastic marking. Plastic packs carry their maker's or brand owner's registration details, or a QR code with them; our guide to FSSAI packaging regulations explains the rule.
- Proofs. A digital proof for content, then a physical proof on the real material for colour and size, approved with the printer before the run.
Who signs off the artwork, and how?#
One named person per check, in writing, before files go to print. Here is the sign-off sheet we suggest, one per SKU:
Keep the signed sheet with the final files. If a question comes up after launch, it shows who checked what and when.
Frequently asked questions#
How long does packaging design take?#
As a planning guide, a single label can be print-ready in two to three weeks, and a full range with structure and bilingual versions in three to five weeks, plus the printer's proofing time. Late legal inputs, slow feedback and dieline changes are what usually stretch it.
What should I send a packaging designer?#
A written brief: the product, the buyer, where it's sold, three to five competitor packs, the SKU list with sizes and formats, the converter's dieline if you have one, your brand assets, a budget range and the launch date. Add the legal inputs as soon as they exist, because the label can't be finished without them.
What is a dieline?#
The flat template of a pack's structure, supplied by the printer or converter, showing where it is cut, folded and glued, and how far the artwork must run past the edges. Artwork is drawn on top of it, so it has to be the converter's latest version.
Who checks the legal text on a food pack?#
The brand owner is responsible, and in practice a food technologist or regulatory consultant checks the label against the FSSAI and Legal Metrology rules before sign-off. We found no provision under which FSSAI approves artwork before print, so this check is yours to arrange.
What files do I get at the end of a packaging design project?#
Agree it in writing before you start. Ask for print-ready files for every SKU to the printer's specification, the editable source files, the dielines, colour references, barcode files and the renders, plus a written assignment of copyright in the final artwork.
Start with the brief#
A packaging project rarely fails at the drawing board. It fails in the gaps between the brand, the designer and the printer. Fill in the brief, name who signs off, and get the dieline before day one. If you'd like a team to run the whole process, send us your brief, or see how we approach packaging design for food and FMCG brands. If you'd like to talk through your brand or your packs, book an hour with Fidal P, our co-founder.
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Co-founder, Marketlube
Fidal P researched, edited and approved this post. Marketlube is a growth partner in Calicut building brands, websites, CRMs and campaigns for businesses across Kerala, India and the Gulf.
