Few people hate packaging more than I do. There are the obvious reasons: environmental unfriendliness, messy cleanup, and the sometimes unfathomable difficulty of opening the thing. These are mere tactical annoyances. Something much scarier has been happening to packaging over the past few years: It’s gotten really nice. This is bad, especially for small companies shipping their first product, and we have Apple to thank.

In the early 2000’s, Apple started spending huge amounts of time and money on packaging that mimics the product it contains (even building a “packaging lab”). This is a neat idea. After all, if a product is carefully designed, why shouldn’t its packaging reflect that same attention to detail and design?

The problem is, building nice packaging is exponentially more difficult than using standard packaging. Nice packaging has to go through the same process of design, prototyping and manufacturing as the product itself — with equal time constraints and difficulties. Let’s compare:

“Standard” packaging

A very nice standard cardboard box. Image courtsey http://www2.dupont.com/Packaging/en_US/news_events/22nd_dupont_packaging_award_winners.html

A typical box (more precisely called a gift box) is made up of:

A corrugated, die-cut cardboard box

Single color printing on the outside

Foam inserts and glue to hold them down

Instruction manual

These usually cost between $0.35 to $1.50. They are typically designed in a day and cut/printed/folded in a week. There’s no custom tooling, minimal proofs, and rarely are boxes rejected due to quality.

“Nice” packaging

iPhone packaging. White everywhere. Image courtesy https://thegadgetobsessed.wordpress.com/2015/01/30/tech-design-who-is-thinking-about-you-more/

On the other hand, a high-end gift box is made up of:

A cardboard box that is double-walled or chipboard and paper coated, often on both sides

4+ color offset printing, usually with foil and/or embossing and/or UV coatings

Custom injection molded accessory tray or other organizers

Often other small molded parts to hold cords/batteries/accessories/etc.

Clear vinyl stickers on most high-gloss surfaces for scratch resistance

These kinds of boxes can cost upwards of $15 each. It can take months of development time to get every part, surface, finish and color just right. Plus, if the product changes, the packaging has to be redesigned, as well. Due to complexity, a misprinted color or other quality issue can result in millions of dollars in wasted parts.