What's In This Project

This project is the packaging for Sweets You Can Eat. The product is a do it yourself baking kit for vegan and gluten free baking recipes. The package has everything you need to make the baked goods. It includes the bake mixes, liquid ingredients, a recipe/description card, and a catalog to choose your next month bake.

Vegan and gluten free bakes often require a lot of obscure ingredients to replace the simple ingredients like basic flour. Because of this, having an all in one pre-measured kit is extremely useful because you don't need to buy a bunch of ingredients you will never use again.

Step 1: Planning & Measurements

The first step was deciding how to ship the products. I choose a flatter cardboard box because it was cheap, recyclable, and easy to transport. I then decided I wanted a to make a tab lock roll end style box because it felt fancier and held the products in well.

After that I made a mood board of all the items I needed in the box and found the style of container those items would be in. Once I knew what would go in the box I created a quick layered sketch on how the items would be held in the box.


For the final part of this step, I ordered all the items I needed and measured them so that I could have the correct dimensions to hold them in place in the box.

Step 2: Box Creation

I then needed to find something online that used the type of box I wanted to use. I ordered the box and then used it to try out how it felt to open it.

After this, I unfolded the box to see how it was made and then reverse-engineered it. After recreating the box in Illustrator, I changed all the dimensions to fit my needs and previous measurements of the items in the box. I created cut lines, bleed lines, and fold lines. I also used the measurements of my liquid items to create a cardboard form to hold them in place in the box.

I then needed to acquire cardboard that was high quality, flat, and large enough for my dimensions. Sadly, the size I needed was slightly outside the regular consumer size of flat cardboard. This meant that I needed to buy from commercial sources, which required dozens of phone calls and hours of research to find a supplier that didn't require a truck loading dock.

After getting the cardboard I laser cut the cardboard and folded it along my fold lines. It took multiple attempts of slightly resizing the box and re-laser cutting before I got a final product that I liked.

Step 3: Color

The next thing I needed to do was add color. Because I was doing it on cardboard, my best option was to use dye sublimation.

I first created the design I wanted to print on the cardboard. I then created multiple swatch tests to find the correct CMYK code, pressure, heat, and paper type to create the colors I wanted. This took around 10 different color tests. The challenge was that to print on dark colors like cardboard you need highly saturated colors. The best way to get highly saturated colors is to use a lot of pressure; however, using a lot of pressure flattens the cardboard and destroys its structural integrity. After many tests, I found the correct formula to get the results I desired. Sadly the paper I needed to use was only available in small 8.5x11 sheets. This was fine for the prototype, but it meant that I had to print out 15 pages and carefully lay them out and heat press them one at a time.

I then put everything together and designed and printed the stickers for the bake mixes.

Step 4: Presentation

After finishing the box, I needed to present it. For this, I created a mockup of the 6-foot by 6-foot board I would present on. I then printed out three banners that would go across the backboard. I also created multiple catalogs to hand out. Finally, I hung up all the banners and set everything up to display in front of them.