Packaging & Print Production Designer

Full-time | Permanent

UPAC Packaging Group is looking for a talented Packaging & Print Production Designer to join our team in Govan.

This isn't a conventional graphic design position.

We are a packaging business with extensive in-house production capabilities and are rapidly developing our work across bespoke packaging, presentation boxes, large-format print, signage, displays and other manufactured products.

We're looking for someone who combines strong creative design skills with a genuinely hands-on approach to production.

You won'tsimply design something and hand it over to somebody else to make.

You’ll help design it, prepare it for production, print it, and work alongside our production team to turn it into the finished product.

You’ll work across a varied range of packaging, print and display projects.

A typical week could involve:

• Creating graphics and artwork for packaging and bespoke boxes
• Working with existing cutter guides and structural designs
• Producing customer visuals and mock-ups
• Preparing production-ready artwork for print
• Creating cut paths and files for digital cutting
• Setting up and managing print jobs through the RIP
• Checking print quality and adjusting output where required
• Working with different boards, papers, vinyls and other substrates
• Producing signage, displays, printed panels and bespoke products
• Working directly with our structural and production teams
• Taking a project from initial customer concept through to the physical finished product

This is probably the single most important software requirement.

You should be genuinely comfortable with complex vector artwork, cutter guides, cut paths, layers, clipping masks, spot colours, bleed and production artwork.

You’ll need to be comfortable with image manipulation, retouching, mock-ups and preparing raster artwork for high-quality and large-format print.

This is a hands-on production role, not a studio-only design position.

You should either have experience operating large-format/digital printing equipment or have worked sufficiently closely with print production that you're comfortable operating machinery and learning our equipment.

Experience with RIP software, colour management, print profiles and different print substrates would be a significant advantage.

Ideally you’ll understand areas such as:

• Dielines and cutter guides
• Creases and glue areas
• Bleed
• CMYK and Pantone
• Spot colours
• White ink layers
• Overprint
• Trapping
• Print tolerances

We’re not simply looking for an artworker.

We’re looking for much more than an artworker.

We need a flexible, creative thinker who can respond quickly to different briefs and deliver strong creative work across a wide variety of projects, products and substrates.

Our customers often come to us with an idea rather than a finished design. You’ll need to be comfortable taking that initial concept, developing it creatively and then considering how it can be produced using the materials and manufacturing capabilities available to us.

That could mean moving from packaging artwork to signage, a point-of-sale display, a bespoke presentation box or something completely new.

The ability to think creatively, adapt quickly and turn ideas into physical products is central to this role.

Experience in any of the following would be particularly valuable:

• Large-format or flatbed printing
• Signage and display production
• RIP and digital print workflows
• CNC or digital cutting
• Packaging prototyping
• Blender, Adobe Substance or similar 3D software

You don’t need to have everything on this list.

You may currently work for a packaging company, commercial printer, signage company, large-format graphics business, repro house or creative business with significant print-production capability.

Your current job title is less important to us than what you can actually do.

We’re particularly interested in someone who enjoys making things.

If you like seeing a project progress from an idea on a screen to something you’ve printed, cut, and assembled and can physically hold in your hands, you’ll probably enjoy this role.

We already have structural packaging knowledge, production equipment, and manufacturing capability in-house.

We’re looking for someone with the creative ability, technical artwork knowledge, and hands‑on production mentality to help us take those capabilities further.