Custom printed packaging, made in the USA

Custom packaging, made to fit

Custom packaging is built around a product rather than the other way round. Instead of buying a stock carton and padding out the gaps, you send us the dimensions of what you are packing and we draw a die-line — the flat technical template of your box before it is folded — to fit it exactly. That template is then printed, cut, creased and shipped flat to your facility.

Fit is not a cosmetic concern. A box with 15mm of dead air on every side costs more in board, more in dimensional weight from the courier, and more in void fill to stop the contents moving. Tightening the internal dimensions of a mailer by a single centimeter across an annual run of 20,000 units is usually worth more than any discount you could negotiate on the unit price.

Choosing a box style

Six structures cover almost every brief that reaches us, and the right one is decided by weight, retail value and how the product travels.

• Mailer boxes — E-flute corrugated with a crash-lock base. Built for the courier network, assembled without tape, and printable on the inside face for the unboxing moment. The default for e-commerce.
• Folding cartons — single-wall paperboard, die-cut and creased flat. Light, cheap per unit, excellent print surface, and the standard for shelf retail where a shipper protects them in transit.
• Rigid boxes — greyboard wrapped in printed or textured paper, with magnetic closures and foam or moulded pulp inserts. The construction customers associate with fragrance, jewelry and premium gifting.
• Sleeve and tray sets — a printed sleeve sliding over a rigid tray. A slower, more deliberate opening action at a lower cost than a full rigid box.
• Window boxes — a die-cut aperture backed with food-grade PET film, so a shopper sees the shade, texture or bake before buying.
• Cardboard tubes — spiral-wound cylinders with metal or paperboard ends, suited to candles, apparel, posters and supplement lines.

Board, grades and materials

Board choice drives both protection and print quality, and over-specifying it is the most common way brands overspend on packaging.

SBS paperboard from 12pt to 24pt (roughly 300–450 GSM) gives the cleanest white surface for full-color printing and is the standard for cosmetics, supplements and confectionery cartons. Kraft reads natural and hides scuffing well, but the unbleached brown base mutes bright inks and complicates brand-color matching — we can lay a white ink base under your artwork if you want the kraft look with dependable color.

Corrugated comes as E-flute for a finer print surface and B-flute where crush resistance matters more. Greyboard at 1,200–1,500 microns is the substrate under every rigid box. Tell us the product weight and we will specify the lightest board that still protects it.

Printing methods and finishes

Digital printing carries no plate cost, which makes it the economical route up to roughly 1,000–2,000 units and allows variable artwork inside a single run. Offset lithography becomes cheaper per unit above that threshold and holds large solid areas of color more evenly across a long run.

Color is specified in CMYK as standard, with Pantone spot colors available where an exact brand match matters. Screens vary between devices, so where color is critical a printed pre-production sample is the only reliable reference.

Finishing is where a box starts to feel expensive: matte, gloss and soft-touch lamination, spot UV, foil stamping in gold, silver, copper or holographic, embossing and debossing. They combine — soft-touch with spot UV on the logo is the most requested pairing — and each adds a step, so allow a little extra lead time.

Artwork, die-lines and proofs

Send print-ready vector PDF, AI or EPS with fonts outlined, raster images at 300 dpi and 3mm bleed on every edge. Every quote includes a free die-line drawn to your exact dimensions, so your artwork lands on the right panel instead of across a fold.

We return a digital proof and a 3D visual of the finished box before anything goes to plate, and a human checks bleed, fold placement and panel text size on the way through. Production starts only once you approve that proof in writing.

Minimums, lead times and pricing

Minimums start at 50 units for rigid work and 100 for most folding cartons, which is low enough to test a launch without committing a quarter of your cash flow to inventory. Standard production runs 8–10 business days from proof approval, plus 2–3 days for specialist finishes and 2–4 days in transit.

Pricing moves on size, board, print coverage, finishing and quantity — in roughly that order. Because unit cost drops at volume, every quote we issue is priced at three quantities so you can see exactly where the breakpoints sit rather than guessing. Structural design, die-lines, 3D visuals and print setup are included, and shipping is free across the continental United States.

Sustainable packaging

Paperboard and corrugated packaging is curbside recyclable in most US municipalities. FSC certification means the fiber is traceable to responsibly managed forests through a documented chain of custody — which is not the same thing as recycled content, and we offer both.

Standard lamination and foil complicate the recycling stream. Where a fully recyclable outcome matters more than the finish, we specify a water-based varnish or an uncoated stock instead, and say so on the quote rather than letting you discover it later.

Industries we produce for

We manufacture for cosmetic and skincare brands, CBD and wellness, bakery and food, apparel, retail, gifting, toys and e-commerce sellers. Each carries its own constraints — ingredient panels and small-type legibility in cosmetics, grease resistance and food-contact liners in bakery, child-resistant structures and state labelling rules in CBD, drop and stack performance in e-commerce.

Everything is produced under one roof in Dallas, Texas: structural design, print, finishing, assembly and quality control. That is the only reason we can quote 8–10 business days and hold to it, and it means the person who can fix a problem is in the same building as the press.