How Will I Print My Package?

I visited Digiprint to see if they were able to print onto A1 cardboard or thick paper, unfortunately the paper wasn’t thick enough for my proposed box however the customer adviser gave me an example of the thickest paper they could print on but the biggest size they could do was only A3. If I were to print my design onto A3 then the box would be a similar size to my prototypes and I wouldn’t have a finished design.


Throughout my next lesson at College, I discussed with a lecturer other possible printing ideas. We spoke about how I could section off the net and print each of the sections onto A3 card then put them together to make the box a realistic size; this process sounds quite difficult but I am willing to give it a go because I am determined to end up with the package that I set out to complete.


I began to section off parts of the net by using the Artboard tool on illustrator, I split the net roughly into 11, once I had split the net into various sections, I opened up the document in Adobe Acrobat and that allowed me to look at each section close up as well as letting me manipulate parts of the file in order to make it easier for me to print.

After printing off the 11 pages onto A3 paper, I attempted to put the sections together however they didn't quite fit which resulted in me finding it near enough impossible to create a final product using this technique. I erased the smaller artboards then created a large artboard that covered the entire net, after this I came to the conclusion that I was going to put the box together by using spray mount glue to place the paper onto the cardboard which is a more convenient alternative to finding a way of printing directly onto cardboard. Before making my final box, I made another prototype by printing the net onto A3 paper and using the spray mount to stick the paper down. Once the paper was neatly stuck down to the cardboard, I began to cut around the outline of the net using a scalpel and ruler. The blade was extremely sharp which could have resulted in a dangerous incident if I didn't take care when cutting.

Once I had the outline of the net, I folded it into place and used glue to secure the flaps together. Throughout this process, a lecturer and I noticed that the dimensions of the net weren't as accurate as they could have been therefore we designed a rough sketch of the updated net with the correct dimensions. I opened up my original net on illustrator and began to alter it according to the sketch.

I perfected the dimensions and changed the outline colour to make the net look clean and neat before sending off the final design. It was time to design my final prototype therefore I sent the net to the printer on A4 paper and folded it together to make sure it was accurate; luckily the net was the perfect fit. It was then time to get my professional print, I downloaded the file onto a USB and took it over to Digiprint where the design was printed onto A1 thick paper.