Sao Paulo, Brazil – Time to market is very important for any brand owner. If all stakeholders in the chain can review packaging faster, it allows the product to be approved for release sooner. By using Esko Studio, Brazilian executives at AstraZeneca, a global biopharmaceutical company, are able to review virtual 3D models of new packaging that are developed by its designers quickly and easily. 

AstraZeneca is a global biopharmaceutical company with a primary focus on the research, development and commercialization of prescription medicines. AstraZeneca operates in over 100 countries and its innovative medicines — focused on therapeutic cardiovascular, metabolic, respiratory, inflammation, autoimmune, antibiotics and oncology product lines — are used by millions of patients worldwide.

Established in Brazil since 1999, AstraZeneca is situated in a 60,000 m² complex in Cotia, in the greater São Paulo area — a location that accommodates its headquarters and factory. There, AstraZeneca is responsible for creating medicine packages in production plants in Brazil (with 1200 employees and a production capacity of 38 million units of non-coated tablets, liquids, creams and ointments) and Argentina. This includes cartridges, blister packs, labels (including tubes), leaflets and shipping boxes. In fact, 3D packaging is developed for all AstraZeneca medicines sold in Brazil. 

While AstraZeneca creates their packaging designs within Adobe Illustrator software in general, and Adobe InDesign for leaflets and brochures, their designers felt the need to improve the quality of their art—particularly for folded boxes. They wanted to offer virtual mockups that could show the entire package in 3D, and that could be shared with the company's internal customers. In the process, they were looking for software that would meet their expectations—generating a fast, high quality 3D PDF file, without adding considerable complexity to the process.

"We had heard about Esko through packaging events," says Lígia Arzenares, AstraZeneca Artwork Development Coordinator. "Esko was able to offer Studio, an excellent plugin tool used within Adobe Illustrator. It was what we were looking for: speed and quality, along with an easy way to create 3D artwork. Esko's team also provided us great service and training."

Esko Studio helped AstraZeneca create virtual 3D folded box models, which in the past was done manually on paper mockups. "Studio has become essential to help us guarantee the quality of work, avoiding surprises in the final product," adds Arzenares. "The creation of 3D packaging through Esko Studio is very fast, and it also helped to improve the designers' productivity."

AstraZeneca has been using Studio Toolkit for Boxes to create the structural ARD files, while Studio Designer transforms the graphic designs into 3D. They are sent to AstraZeneca's internal customers to help them better visualize the package with regards to size, shape, how they close—and to make sure that information is printed in line with its company's packaging Trademark Manual.

One of the highlights of Esko Studio Designer is that it is an Illustrator plugin. AstraZeneca is able to work with it within the familiar Adobe Illustrator design package. The other nice feature is that any company computer with an Adobe PDF Reader is able to view and rotate the 3D artwork. "By creating 3D packaging through an Illustrator plugin, we have streamlined the process and added quality that we are able to deliver to our internal customers," comments Arzenares. "All of our customers are very satisfied with this new way to view packaging, generating faster approvals and powerful art. 

"Our 3D artwork is so good that recently we have received requests from the marketing department to create virtual 3D mockups of our promotional materials, as well," adds Arzenares. “Currently our promotional materials consist of photos of packaging produced by our advertising agencies. However, the 3D images generated by Esko Studio are much faster, offer better display quality, and are free of agency charges."

AstraZeneca has worked with other Esko DeskPack plug-ins, including Dynamic Barcodes. "It would be very interesting if we could eventually invest in ArtiosCAD software so we could create technical structural files for the complete package of all Esko tools for creating packages. Esko Studio quickly and easily creates exceptional 3D images to review, without the additional costs to our agencies. It optimizes our approval process for final art, and extends the productivity of our designers," concludes Arzenares.