Packaging Design: What the Work Involves and What You Get

Packaging Design is a branding service from Livin Services: design for the shelf, the courier box and the unboxing video. You get brand discovery, positioning input and moodboards for packaging design, concept routes presented with the reasoning behind each and refinement to a single direction across real applications, all of it written into a fixed scope before anyone starts work, and it usually takes 3–7 weeks.

This is the long version of that: what actually happens, what lands at the end, and how to tell the difference between packaging design done properly and packaging design done in a hurry.

What Packaging Design is for

Design for the shelf, the courier box and the unboxing video. That is the whole point of it, and it is worth being blunt about, because a lot of branding work gets sold on activity rather than on the thing it changes.

If none of the following sound like your situation, this probably is not the work to buy — and further down we say what to look at instead.

• Every asset your team makes looks slightly different
• Your logo becomes unreadable below a certain size
• You have no written rules, so every request comes back to design
• The brand no longer matches the business you have become

What you get

Every item below is written into the scope before anyone starts. Anything outside it is quoted separately rather than absorbed quietly, which is what stops a fixed price drifting.

• Brand discovery, positioning input and moodboards for Packaging Design
• Concept routes presented with the reasoning behind each
• Refinement to a single direction across real applications
• Final assets in vector and raster, in every needed format
• Usage guidelines covering do and do not
• Editable source files handed over in full
• Print-ready artwork checked against your printer dielines and specifications
• Legally required information laid out properly, not squeezed in at the end

What is different once it is done

• Packaging Design is in place and documented, so your team can change it without calling us
• Brand discovery, positioning input and moodboards for Packaging Design delivered against a written list you can check line by line
• Every account and credential in your name, with nothing on our infrastructure
• A clear record of where you started, so the effect of the branding work is measurable rather than a feeling
• One fixed price paid, with no retainer required to keep it working

How the work runs

1. We look at what you actually have

Before anything is quoted we go through your current Illustrator setup and whatever else touches it. Half the time this changes the recommendation — the thing you asked for turns out not to be the thing that is costing you.

2. The scope gets written down

Every line of Packaging Design that will be delivered, in plain English, with one fixed price and a date. Exclusions are listed as explicitly as inclusions, because the argument three weeks in is always about something nobody wrote down.

3. Build, in the open

You see design for the shelf, the courier box and the unboxing video take shape rather than being shown a finished thing at the end. If something we assumed turns out to be wrong, you hear it the day we find out.

4. Tested against real conditions

Brand discovery, positioning input and moodboards for Packaging Design is checked on real devices and real data, not just on the machine it was built on. A thing that works only in ideal conditions is not finished.

5. Handover, then it is yours

Documentation written for your team, every account already in your name, and a walkthrough. Typical end to end: 3–7 weeks. Nothing rolls over into a monthly fee you did not ask for.

The tools it runs on

Illustrator, Dieline templates, InDesign.

We work in the tools you already own wherever that is sensible. Where we recommend adding something, you own the account from the day it is created — not us, and not a reseller.

What we check before calling it finished

• Every item in the Packaging Design scope ticked off against the written list, in front of you
• Tested on a real mid-range phone, not only on a desktop browser
• Checked against your existing Illustrator setup so nothing that already worked has quietly broken
• Concept routes presented with the reasoning behind each verified end to end rather than assumed
• Keyboard navigation and screen-reader labelling checked on anything interactive
• Handover documentation read back by someone who did not build it

How long it takes

Usually 3–7 weeks. The date goes in writing with the scope, and the commonest reason it slips is not the build — it is access and approvals arriving late, which is why we ask for both up front.

Questions people ask before buying

What is Packaging Design?

Packaging Design is a branding service from Livin Services. In one line: design for the shelf, the courier box and the unboxing video. It's a defined piece of work with an agreed finish line, not an open-ended retainer, so you know what you're buying before you commit to it.

What is included in Packaging Design?

Packaging Design covers brand discovery, positioning input and moodboards for packaging design, concept routes presented with the reasoning behind each, refinement to a single direction across real applications, final assets in vector and raster, in every needed format, usage guidelines covering do and do not, editable source files handed over in full, print-ready artwork checked against your printer dielines and specifications, legally required information laid out properly, not squeezed in at the end and a physical proof reviewed before any full run is committed. All of that gets written down before we start, so you know exactly what's landing and what isn't. Anything outside the list gets quoted separately — we won't quietly absorb it and we won't quietly bill for it either.

What is not included in Packaging Design?

Anything not named in the written scope. In practice that usually means ongoing management after handover, content and copy you have not supplied, third-party licence and subscription costs, and work in other disciplines — those are separate services with their own scopes. We list exclusions explicitly rather than leaving them to be discovered halfway through.

How long does Packaging Design take?

A typical Packaging Design engagement runs 3–7 weeks from kickoff to handover. That covers discovery and scoping, build or implementation, review with your team, and a final QA pass. Larger or multi-market builds extend this and we say so during scoping rather than after.

Can Packaging Design be delivered faster than 3–7 weeks?

Sometimes, if the scope is reduced rather than the care taken. We will tell you which parts can be deferred to a second phase to hit a date. What we will not do is compress testing and review to make a deadline look achievable — that moves the cost from the timeline to the month after launch.

How is Packaging Design quoted?

One fixed price against a written scope. Not an hourly rate. What moves that number is how many templates, integrations and awkward edge cases are involved — not how long we happen to take, which is our problem to manage, not yours. There's no price list because a real quote depends on your situation. Tell us what you need and you'll get a written scope and a fixed figure back, with anything that could change it flagged upfront rather than appearing on an invoice later.

What we need from you, and when

The commonest cause of a slipped date on this kind of work is not the build. It is access and approvals arriving late. So this is written down as plainly as our side of the deal:

• Access to Illustrator — Admin or collaborator access, created in your account so you can revoke it whenever you like. The single most common cause of a slipped date on Packaging Design is access arriving two weeks after kickoff
• One person who can decide — Not a committee. Someone who can approve a direction without escalating it. Where approvals need three people, we build that into the timeline rather than pretending it is free
• Whatever content the scope depends on — Copy, images, product data, brand assets — whichever apply. If you would rather we produced them, that is a separate scope and we will say so before you assume it is included
• An agreed definition of finished — We write down what "done" means for Packaging Design before starting, and both sides sign off on it. It is the cheapest thing you can do to avoid a dispute at the end

A note on access and approvals

Two practical notes. Send individual accounts rather than a shared login — individual access can be revoked per person at handover, and a shared password is the most common way a business quietly loses control of its own systems. And name one person who can approve decisions. Not a committee. A project with three approvers moves at the speed of the slowest one, and everybody ends up frustrated with the wrong party.

What we check before we call it finished

"Done" is the word that causes the most arguments in this industry, because it usually means something different to each side. Ours means all of the following are true, and you can hold us to the list:

• Every item in the Packaging Design scope ticked off against the written list, in front of you
• Tested on a real mid-range phone, not only on a desktop browser
• Checked against your existing Illustrator setup so nothing that already worked has quietly broken
• Concept routes presented with the reasoning behind each verified end to end rather than assumed
• Keyboard navigation and screen-reader labelling checked on anything interactive
• Handover documentation read back by someone who did not build it

Note what is in there and what is not. There is no line about you being happy — not because we do not care, but because a definition of done that depends on a feeling has no end. If something is wrong against the scope, we fix it. If something outside the scope turns out to matter, we quote it as a line rather than absorbing it quietly, because absorbed work is how a fixed price stops being fixed.

The tools, and who owns them

Illustrator, Dieline templates, InDesign.

Where you already own something that does the job, we use it. Where we recommend adding something, the account gets created in your name, on your billing, with your team as administrators from the first day — not ours, and not a reseller's. This is not generosity. It is the single thing that determines whether you have a supplier or a dependency.

The same applies to everything we produce. Source files, configuration, documentation, credentials: yours, handed over as we go rather than held until a final invoice clears.

Where this discipline actually stands

Design gets bought on portfolios and judged on handover. A beautiful set of screens that nobody can build, or that only covers the ideal path, creates work rather than removing it. So we design every state — loading, empty, error, too much content, not enough — and hand over files organised for the person who has to continue them rather than for the person who made them.

What we will not do

Worth being explicit, because these are the promises you will hear elsewhere:

• We will not guarantee a commercial outcome. Design for the shelf, the courier box and the unboxing video is what the work delivers. What that turns into depends on your market, your pricing and your competitors as much as on us.
• We will not quote a number before understanding the scope. A price given in the first five minutes is a price with the risk padded in, and you pay for the padding.
• We will not take work we do not think will help. That has cost us enquiries and it will again.
• We will not hold your accounts, your data or your files as leverage.
• We will not add a tool where removing one would do. We say "remove this" fairly often, and it is always less to invoice for.

When packaging design is not the right thing to buy

• You need it faster than 3–7 weeks. We will not compress packaging design into a weekend by skipping the testing, and an agency that agrees to is telling you which corner they plan to cut
• You are not committed to Illustrator. Most of the value here comes from working properly inside Illustrator, so if you are mid-way through deciding whether to move off it, decide first — otherwise you are paying us to improve something you are about to replace
• What you actually want is design for the shelf, the courier box and the unboxing video guaranteed as an outcome. We will not sign that, because the result depends on your market, your pricing and your traffic as much as on the build. We guarantee the scope, the date and the quality of the work
• You want someone to take it away and report back monthly. This runs as a fixed piece of work with a written scope and a handover, not as a retainer — if you want a permanent branding function, hiring is usually cheaper than us

If any of those describe you, the useful thing is usually a conversation rather than a project. Tell us what you are trying to change and we will point at whatever we think the real lever is, including when that is something we do not sell.

How we would want to be compared

If you are getting other quotes, and you should, compare the scopes rather than the totals. Ask each supplier the same three things: what exactly is included and excluded, what does done mean, and who owns the accounts at the end. The answers separate suppliers far more reliably than a portfolio does.

And if someone else's scope covers the same ground for less, take it. We would rather you did that than start something on a number nobody is comfortable with.