Cold, wet, and carried six at a time.

Beverage packaging fails in ways commercial print never has to think about. A carton goes into a chiller and comes out under condensation. A carrier holds six full bottles and gets swung by one hand. A multipack is stacked, shrink-wrapped, driven across the country and then expected to face the shelf square. None of that is a printing problem until it is.

Most of it is decided before the artwork. Board and coating together determine whether a carrier scuffs, softens or loses its colour after a week in a chiller; the wrong pairing looks like a print fault and is not one. Board grade and grain direction decide whether a carrier holds its shape when it is full or splays at the handle. We would rather have that conversation at the drawing stage than explain it afterwards.

Multipacks are where the structure earns its money. Basket carriers, cluster packs and wraparound sleeves each machine-fill differently, take a different amount of board and present a different face to the shelf. A format that runs beautifully on one filling line jams on another, so the line comes first and the pack is drawn around it.

At the premium end the tolerance narrows again. Dark board shows every inconsistency, foil and emboss have to register to the print rather than near it, and a spirits carton is often handled slowly, in good light, by somebody who has already decided to spend money. That pack is doing a different job to a six-pack of water, and it is drawn, printed and finished accordingly.