Packaging Design Tutorial in Photoshop

Photoshop is a great tool in the hand of an artist who knows to use it wisely and can be used in designing almost everything from simple logo to complex packaging designs. The outlook of any consumer product is very important as it works as an advertisement of those products and gives the idea of it into buyer’s mind. They are often very colorful and glossy to attract consumers of all ages and neatly designed to beat its competitors.

The packaging design described here is a basic one, a packet that can be use to pack dry foods like chips and similar dry foods. The cover is bright and glossy to give proper outlook and company logo, text and tags can be added on it to make it working. The color used is monoblock but multiple colors will make it more beautiful that can be adjusted according to the logo color of the company.

To start, make a new page of 500 x 500 pixels, white background, RGB color, 72 pixels/ inch depth and 8 bits color density. The packet will be smaller in size but extra white part will be needed in outwards scaling. There draw a rectangle by the Rectangle Tool U from the Left drawing panel and make it 300 pixel in height and 200 pixels in width. Clicking on the rulers and setting a new guide on exact length will help in accuracy of the drawing.

Fill the rectangle by the Paint Bucket Tool G in the color code #f9be2e or anything that is required to match the company logo precisely. The yellowish color used here is quite common in packets. But red or green may be used as well. Then again, draw a rectangle on the top of the box in 300 x 35 pixels dimension, rulers may be used to get the length right. Make this in a new layer. Now right click on the shape, select free transform, then right click again to select the ‘Wrap’ option. Warp the rectangle as the picture to get the top sachet effect by holding and drawing the corners of the rectangles in proper direction as shown below.

Make same rectangle in similar process on the bottom to make it round shaped for giving a more realistic look. Free transform and warp the layer to modify it, the hold and draw the middle bottom corners of the rectangle so that it look like the following picture and gets bended on the bottom. Press enter to apply the changes.

Next, use the Eraser Tool, keyboard shortcut E to erase some part of the upper and bottom of the rectangle to give it tiny stripes of white space so that it look like a actual packet. The stripes shut be parallel to each other and on the upper and bottom part, 3 of each will make it just about perfect. The eraser toll may be reduced in size to 3 pix and the image may be zoomed to 250% for doing this work accurately, the more precise it is, the more packets looks real.

Next step is to give the bends look on the packet, for those, we will use blurred shapes of white color. Select Polygonal lasso Tool, keyboard shortcut L and make some shapes like the picture in a new layer called Shape. Then fill the shape each time with white color using the paint bucket tool, keyboard shortcut G. After doing all the shapes, add a Gaussian Blur to it from menu -> Filter -> Blur -> Gaussian Blur and set the radius of Gaussian Blur to 6 pixels approximately. Next copy the packet layer, fill the packet with a different color of #00ff72 set by the Paint Bucket Tool and set the transparency of the layer to 25% so that it will give a greenish red effect on the packet as a whole.

Next write the texts in the packet by the horizontal Type Tool and enter desired name or tags on the packet according to the product type. The font settings used here is Matura MT Script, 18 Pixel width and Red color; company logo can also be used in proper place to make it complete.

The packet design is simple yet beautiful and logo, designs or product picture may be added according to the product with which it will be selling and personal touch of imagination is always inspiring and adds beauty to the design.