Today there are many affordable entry level design tools available to the novice designer, the inventor or companies who do not have the budget for high end Computer Assisted Design (CAD) tools. With most CAD tools, you can achieve 80% of the way to a successful design.

However, it’s that extra 20% that will set your design (package) to the next level. Entry level CAD tools often do not enable freedom of freeform design. The controls of how the shapes are defined are often implied in entry level CAD and programs and may not be intuitive.

Designers who want to express their vision for a concept in graphical form need to have control of all the parameters of shape generation. This ensures their ideas are not “dumbed down” to what the software will allow. High end CAD tools offer full parametric control that can be applied in either a freeform design mode or with explicitly specified expressions and equations.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

ROB GROLL

Director – Design Services

Rob’s years of experience in the plastic packaging industry includes PET container design, preform design, handle design, project engineering, as well as the associated tooling design. Rob has applied his engineering background to create a variety of complex bottle shapes which incorporate the importance of form and function in design. Rob has supported every PTI customer with creative package design work and has routinely taken customer concepts to commercial reality.