What Is Production Design?

The process that occurs between graphic design and printing

A visual description of prepress design

KitPrint helps you launch CPG products faster and cheaper with production design specialists via one flat monthly fee

Free your designer up for the next high impact creative project

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Unlimited revisions until you're 100% satisfied

Receive your files in as little as 1/2 day (Mon-Fri)

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Stop accepting "good enough" because you don't want to spend more time and money on another round of revisions

Outsource Your Headaches

Layout and fitting designs into dielines

Unworkable printability issues that require design adjustments

Color management: separations, pantones, rgb, cmyk

Three-dimensional print continuity

Layer and separation organization

Misunderstanding of printer specs

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56% of CPG professionals agree that late-stage packaging design decisions tend to be
weak and rushed

Nielsen

Take Your Painkillers

SERVICES

Apply Brand Assets To A New SKU

Assess, adjust and apply creative assets to dielines for layout, legibility, hierarchy and performance

Product Line Extensions

Iterate existing SKU assets while ensuring visual consistency via dielines

Dieline Application Validation & Modification

Ensure color separations, overprint, rasters and other notations have been correctly applied to dielines

Printer-Requested Layout Revisions

Tackle printer-requested revisions to existing print-ready dielines (not created by us)

Meredith, Co-founder of KitPrint

Your Production Design Director

Meredith has been a printing and production design leader for 10+ years. Before leading packaging and printing at a fast-growing CPG company that launched 60+ products and hit $80M+ in sales over a 5-year period in one of the most highly-regulated industries in the world, Meredith built and ran her own production design and prepress design business. Companies and brands of all sizes depended on Meredith to ensure their creative vision shined through in the physical form.

Membership Levels

Monthly

$2,895/mo

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Quarterly

$2,695/mo

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Yearly

$2,495/mo

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Learn more about how KitPrint works and how it can help you.

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Starter Package

$1,095/mo

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Up to 3 Projects

Subscription Benefits

Project Board

Easily add and track design requests. We'll tackle them one at a time based on your priorities.

Fixed monthly rate

A predictable budget with predictable deliverables.

Minimal turns

Minimize revisions via our team's extensive experience

Scalable

Use your subscription as needed. Cancel anytime.

Your IP

You always own 100% of your production designs.

Production design expertise

Access to decades of production design experience.

FAQ

What is production design?

The process that occurs between final design creation and final printing, marrying your creative vision with the technical needs of the printer to ensure your product looks just the way you envisioned.

What type of projects can you work on?

If it gets printed, it requires production design! Examples of common projects are:

  • Package layout and adherence to supplied compliance guidelines
  • Apply your assets/artwork to a printer-supplied dieline
  • Apply existing designs to new SKUs/sizes
  • Prepress optimization: bleeds, distortions, scores & perforations, color separations and optimization for printing method (flexographic, offset, lithographic, gravure, etc.)
  • Make printer-requested revisions (typefaces, knockout and overprint minimums, raster image management)
  • Marketing materials (sales sheets, catalogs, shelf-talkers, merchandise)

Why can’t my graphic designers handle production design?

They can. However, graphic designers’ skills are best leveraged on creative projects. Time spent on the technical production design process means other creative projects get pushed out.

Is there a limit to how many design projects I can have?

As long as your subscription is active you can add as many design requests to your queue as you like. Each project will be delivered one-by-one - we cannot move on to the next project until the current one is completed or put on hold.

How fast will I receive my deliverables?

It depends on the complexity of the design project but most projects are delivered within 3-4 working days. More complex projects or projects with multiple layers of deliverables may be broken into multiple projects.

Who are the designers?

We have a team of highly-vetted production designers. Every design deliverable is reviewed and approved by our co-founder (and seasoned production design expert) before you receive your final designs.

Who are the founders?

We are two long-time colleagues that have spent years leading product development, packaging and printing in some of the most highly-regulated and fastest-growing CPG industries.

How do you vet/qualify your designers?

In order to join our team, a production designer must pass a rigorous test that includes a challenging, real-life production design scenarios.

What programs do you design in?

Our designers are fluent in the Adobe Creative Suite - Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop, etc. Most jobs will be completed within Adobe Illustrator, however some designs will require managing assets in a variety of filetypes.

Doesn’t the printer have their own production artist?

Some printers have in-house production designers. Many do not. Some printers even leverage our team to do production design for them on behalf of their clients. We typically find that the printers that do have in-house production designers focus on ease of printing rather than customizing your design to be the best it can be.

How do I request designs?

You will submit your request in your Trello board.

What will you need from me to start a project?

Assets and information we’ll need will include (but may not be limited to):

  • Dielines
  • Artwork
  • Brand guidelines
  • Copy and rough placement
  • Design and project brief(s) if applicable
  • Type of printing (digital, offset, flexographic etc…)
  • Printer artwork submission guidelines
  • Requested # of versions (if we are generating layout)
  • Loom video or other video overview if needed

How will I receive my files?

You can specify your required deliverables and file types! Every thing will be housed in your Trello board and Dropbox folder(s).

What if I don’t like the design?

Don’t worry! We’ll complete as many revisions as necessary until you’re happy.

Are there any refunds?

There are no refunds but we will complete as many revisions as necessary in order to provide a result you are 100% satisfied with.

What are some common production design issues that clients ask you to tackle?

  • Layout & fitting of your designs into dielines, including required safe zone and bleed spaces
  • Consulting on printability/issues that may require redesign (prepress review)
  • Color management: Color space translations (RGB → CMYK and assets with competing color spaces), Pantone color assignments, Color separations
  • Three-dimensional print continuity (e.g. design flows across multiple panels of a box)
  • Layer and separation organization (simplify, organize and clearly label sections to printer/ manufacturer specs and for ease of editing and printing)
  • Misunderstanding of printer specs/requirements

What if I only have a single design project?

No problem. You can pause your subscription when the project is completed and resume when you have more project requests.

Can I prorate service within a month?

Sorry, proration isn’t available - you will be charged for a full month.

What will the final design project output include?

  • .ai file with live type (not outlined)
  • .ai file with outlined type
  • All relevant fonts in .otf or .ttf format
  • Any source images or design files in a folder labeled “Links”, including source images that have been edited
  • If an InDesign file, the file will be packaged with fonts, links and PDF

Do you watermark or scale your designs to prevent us from editing them?

No way! This is a collaborative process and designs will always be provided to you in a format that your design team can quickly edit as needed/desired.

My project is complicated, can I schedule a call with you?

Definitely! If it’s difficult to get the gist of what you need across in an email, we’re more than happy to schedule a call with you. Simply check the “needs intro call” box when you are submitting your job and you will be routed to our calendar for scheduling. Note: This may add a day or two to the delivery timeline.

What are your hours?

KitPrint Project Managers and Designers are hard at work between 9am and 6pm PST.