Packaging box frustration!

[medusa]

Now I've actually started to get orders in (yay!) I thought I should get myself some nice boxes to put my wares in. I contacted Potters but every time they say my logo is too detailed! There is no writing on it and considering I'm only going to be using the 3.5 and a 6.5 one, I can't see why it should be so flipping hard!

Can anyone recommend another supplier who is able to put a logo on a box and not charge an arm and a leg?

[Dennis]

I usually visit Lynco Europe, in Farringdon Road London for boxes, but I've never asked about printed ones. You might just have to resort to printed labels instead. I found their website a bit unresponsive tonight, but here is their e-mail address lyncodisplaysltd@btinternet.com .
Their telephone numbers are; 020 7405 0699, or 7405 2605. Let us know what happens, Dennis.

[medusa]

Hmmm, I'll give them a call, but Im not that struck with the stuff they have on the site. I don't want printed labels. I want pretty boxes dammit!
/tantrum

[Goldsmith]

I have used this company in the past for custom presentation cases but they do not have a website, they are ;Jewel Display Ltd. of London Road, Brandon, Suffolk. Phone number 01842 814722.
Forgive me if you have seen this on the other site as I have posted it there also.
Below is one of the custom leather covered cases they made for me in the past for one of my paper knives.
James

[Joe]

Potters use a hot-foil transfer system onto the finished boxes: the logo is converted to a metal stamp which is heated up and then pressed onto the foil sheet - the heat melts glue on the back and that sticks the foil to the box. If lines are too close together, the heat melts the glue in between and you get a blob; if dots are too small, they don't transfer enough heat to melt the glue and you get nothing.

There are companies that print onto paper and then glue the paper to card and fold them into boxes... the boxes are very cheap and the printing is very precise... but the minimum orders are several hundred pounds.

Is it worth working on the logo to get something that suggest the detail? Remember that the stamp also embosses, so if the detail you want is missing bits (scales on a fish, locks in hair, polka-dots, texture things) then you will still see the detail embossed even if the foil sticks to most of the area.

[medusa]

To be honest Joe, I want black on black an I'd be happy just to have it embossed. the logo I wanted was this one...



but I'd settle for this one...



These are early versions...

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5189/...4fb0450a3e.jpg

This one is the smaller block printing size...

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5106/...67950e0a_m.jpg

[Joe]

What a striking image that would make if you could get it sorted!

Hmmm... I don't think sampling down is going to get what you want. Even at the higher resolution, it's not easy to see the image it's so complex - not the detail so much as the internal texture. I can imagine moving to a line-drawing and then working to fatten the dark edges would get something with less texture but more of the important contour detail. Do you have the original image...?

[medusa]

well the original image is mucked about composite of a photo of me and the Bernini medusa...

This is I think the final version before I went about making it so I wasn't recognisable.

[ps_bond]

You'd think the hair would be a dead giveaway

It's a fairly busy image (as Joe says), even knocked down to the threshold; is there any way of simplifying it that would work for you? Run it through an edge detection filter, perhaps? Or go old-school and trace it so you've a slightly stylised image?

It took me a moment of flip-flopping back and forth with the B&W image; a classic left brain/right brain thing - at first I wasn't sure if I was looking at a piece of seaweed, then I started seeing the negative space.

[medusa]

Peter, with cornish winds my hair often does look like a bed of snakes ot a mass of seaweed!

I think the heavy stamp image is actually pretty basic. I was told I could have it made into a 0.5mm square metal stamp with no problems (I was originally going to just stamp my logo on my work and not bother with hallmarking).

I don't mind that it's not immediately obvious, in fact I like the fact it isn't obvious. the first flickr link in the edits is actually what my logo is like but it's all stone coloured. I was originally going with the really heavy abstract version but was talked out of it. And I don't think I can bear to re-work it again. it took me weeks to end up with this one and I don't have the time to make a new version.

The nice man from Noble has been in touch so we'll see what he has to say. The one I wanted, the Chicago range, is predictably discontinued and not many of the other ranges make choker boxes big enough for me. at least not in my price range.