Creating a 3D box package with a label in Adobe Illustrator.
For this activity you will be creating a 3D box to package your product. Your product could be a breakfast cereal, cake mix, washing powder, shoes, toy or whatever you like that would need to be packaged in a box like the one shown below. Step 1 To get started, load Adobe Illustrator and click on File and then New to begin a new document. Step 2 Set up the width and height of the new document so that there is enough room for your 3D box to fit in. As an example for a cereal box, you can set it to 1000 px (height) by 1000 px (width) which will allow enough room (px stands for pixels. You can also change the Units to centimeters if you like). Click OK to save. Step 3 Use the Rectangle tool to design the front of the box. Choose the fill colour you like for the box (you can also use a gradient). With the rectangle tool selected, click once on the blank document and you will see a dialog box that asks you to specify the width and height of the rectangle. The width for this example will be 400 px and the with will be 550 px. Click OK and you will see your new rectangle appear. Using the Selection tool, move it to the right-­‐hand side of your document. Step 4 Now you need to draw up the side of the box. The steps are the same as in Step 3 but you just need to make the side of the box a different size. Using the Rectangle tool again, click once to set the width and the height. The height will be the same (550px) but the width will be 150 px. Using the Selection tool, drag the second rectangle to the left side of the first rectangle so it looks like the picture below: Step 5 Now that you have the shapes for the front and side of the box, you need to draw the shape for the top of the box. Again, select the Rectangle tool and click once on the document to specify the width and height of the rectangle. The width should be 400 px and the height should be 150 px. Click OK and then use the selection tool to drag the new rectangle above the largest rectangle which is the front of the box. Now you have the front, side, and top of your box. It should look like the example below. Step 6 Now that you have drawn the shapes for the front, top, and side of your box, you will need to actually fill those shapes with your packaging design. You can use the Type (or Text) tool and different shape tools to add your company logo, product name, and product information such as ingredients or cooking instructions. To rotate text or shapes for the side of the box, grab the Selection tool, click on the shape/text you want to rotate and move the mouse cursor next to it until you see a curved arrow like in the picture below. Then click and drag the object around until you have rotated it to the desired position. Here is an example of the completed design for the front, side, and top of a cereal box. Now it’s time to make it 3D! Step 7 Click on Window and then Symbols. You will see the Symbols box come up to the right side of the screen. Using the Selection tool, click and drag your mouse around the front side of your box package to select the rectangle and all the text or shapes inside it. Drag it to the Symbols box to save it as a new symbol. Step 8 Save the new symbol for the front of the box by giving it a name and choosing ‘Graphic’ for the Type. Click OK to save. Step 9 Repeat Steps 7 and 8 for the side of the box and then for the top of the box. You should now have three symbols – the front, side, and top. Step 10 Now you can use the Selection tool to highlight and delete the front, side, and top of your box from the document window. They are saved as Symbols so they are ready to use for later. You will see that they still remain in the Symbols box even though you have deleted them from your document. Step 11 Draw up a new rectangle (in any colour) that is the same size as the front of your box (height of 550 px and width of 400 px). This box will be used to form a 3D model and the symbols for each side that you made in the previous steps will be wrapped around this. Remember, just click once with the rectangle tool to specify the width and height before drawing it. This is what your document should now look like: Step 12 With the Selection tool, select the new rectangle and click on Effect (on the top menu bar), then 3D, then Extrude & Bevel. Step 13 Make sure that the Preview checkbox is ticked. Change Extrude Depth to 150 px. Now you have a 3D box. Do not click OK yet. Step 14 Now you need to attach the product label to the box. Click on Map Art to do this. Make sure the Preview checkbox is selected. The first surface that is selected should be the front of the box. Click on the drop-­‐down list next to Symbol and choose the symbol you saved for the front of the box. Step 15 Using the arrows, move through the different surfaces until you see the side selected (there should be a red line around the side of the box in the preview. Make sure that it is the outside surface of the box, not the inside surface. You may need to move further through the list of surfaces until you find the outside; otherwise if you apply the label to the inside of your box you won’t be able to see it! Click on the Symbols drop-­‐down list and select the symbol you made for the side of your box. You will need to rotate the side as shown below. Repeat this step for the top of your box using the symbol you made for the top of your box. You should now have the front, left side, and top of your box wrapped with your packaging design using the symbols you made earlier. Click on OK. If you wish to rotate your box, just click and drag the cube around to see different sides of the box. At the moment, you only have applied label design to the left side, front, and top of the box. You can make more symbols in the extension activity to complete the design for all other sides of the box. You could add more detail such as barcodes, ingredients, product images, cooking instructions, etc. Here is the completed example box below. Extension: At this point you will only have a left side, front, and top of your box with a package design/label. You can also create labels for the right side, rear, and bottom side of the box by making more symbols and editing the 3D effect. To edit the 3D effect, click on Window and Appearance. You will see the Appearance box appear. Using the Selection tool, click on the box. Then click on 3D Extrude & Bevel (Mapped) in the Appearance list to edit the effect. You can select Map Art again or you can rotate the cube to see different sides of the box. You can also use the symbols and add tabs and folding lines to create a net/development for your box to print. Once printed on paper or cardboard, you can fold the different faces and tabs and have a real 3D box package.