The Art of Package Design

THE DESIGN PROCESS
your best friend.
Have you set up the file using layers? All design programs
allow you to “layer” the elements to easily identify and click on
an element. Never create a file in one large and crowded layer.
And very important, label your layers. No one can figure out
how to navigate through a file with a layer pallet labeled, “Layer
1, Layer 2”, etc.
There is software out there that will check your files for you
(pre-flight software), but you can do this yourself. So after all of
the design and revisions, what sort of things are you looking for?
In any software that you are using for design; Adobe Illustrator,
Adobe InDesign, Corel Draw, etc. there are multiple versions
and upgrades. You may be using the latest version but is
the printer using the same version? You can ask the printer or
you can supply multiple versions. Adobe Illustrator uses Creative
Cloud (CC) as their current version but many companies
did not switch over from Creative Suite 6 (CS6) due to the
change in price structure. In CS6 you could buy the software. In
CC versions, you need to have a monthly subscription. So you
can simply supply a file saved in two different versions, and tag
them “CC or CS6”.
If you are using Adobe InDesign when you use the “package”
feature (which collects all of your images and fonts into a
single folder), it also creates an IDML file (InDesign Markup
Language) which allows users to open the file in older versions.
Be sure to include the IDML file when uploading to the printer.
Similarly Corel Draw has multiple versions so check with the
80