Custom printed boxes and bespoke printed boxes, designed, prototyped, printed and built in one London house. The dieline, the print and the build never leave the building, so the prototype you approve is the box you receive.
Walk into either location with the product itself, or call straight through.
“You sign off a box you can hold, not a flat screen proof.”
Packaging breaks between suppliers. A structural designer hands to a die-maker, the die-maker to a printer, and the registration drifts on the fold. We own the whole chain.
Every job starts as a CAD dieline and becomes a CNC-cut prototype on your real board stock in one to two working days. The sample catches what a screen proof cannot.
Three decades of custom packaging for fashion houses, fragrance and beauty brands, galleries, finance and events teams.
City Images, time after time, produces high-quality, immaculate products. Big shout out to Heather who is incredibly efficient, professional and executes to perfection. Thank you, City Images!
This is an excellent printing service. They clearly do big things too, but even for smaller projects like mine they're quick, efficient, accurate, and produce high quality output. The advice and support I received from Heather was exceptional.
I worked with James on a branding installation project at MM Ilford. He managed all the client side interactions, community was quick and clear and the quality of materials were excellent. would highly recommend working with City Images
Excellent service, great quality print. I highly recommend them for business and professional usage. Sherif was very thorough and provided a smooth experience. They indeed do provide same day print and delivery service in London.
A centrally located and professional print store, with huge and great quality printers regardless of the small storefront, fun and reliable staff, and an impeccable and fast service. They punch way above their weight - highly recommended!
Perfect print on large sheet of antique mirror. We are so delighted with the final image - exceeded our expectations. Francisco (Chico) was super patient and knowledgeable and the price was good vale. Would definitely recommend.
Was attended to professionally at City Images by Heather with attention to detail all within 24 hours. Highly impressed with the way she handled the assignment and the personal touch given to the job. Will highly recommend City Images anytime.
Professional and Reliable "From start to finish, the team was professional, friendly, and efficient. They kept me updated throughout the process, and the final product was delivered ahead of schedule. Exceptional service and reliability"
Fast, reliable and great quality. Been working with this company for a number of years now, the team is very responsive and helpful. Signage is always good quality and delivered in time. Wholeheartedly recommended!
Always incredible service and quality from the team including Sherif, Francisco, and Heather. Highly recommended.
City Images, time after time, produces high-quality, immaculate products. Big shout out to Heather who is incredibly efficient, professional and executes to perfection. Thank you, City Images!
This is an excellent printing service. They clearly do big things too, but even for smaller projects like mine they're quick, efficient, accurate, and produce high quality output. The advice and support I received from Heather was exceptional.
I worked with James on a branding installation project at MM Ilford. He managed all the client side interactions, community was quick and clear and the quality of materials were excellent. would highly recommend working with City Images
Excellent service, great quality print. I highly recommend them for business and professional usage. Sherif was very thorough and provided a smooth experience. They indeed do provide same day print and delivery service in London.
A centrally located and professional print store, with huge and great quality printers regardless of the small storefront, fun and reliable staff, and an impeccable and fast service. They punch way above their weight - highly recommended!
Perfect print on large sheet of antique mirror. We are so delighted with the final image - exceeded our expectations. Francisco (Chico) was super patient and knowledgeable and the price was good vale. Would definitely recommend.
Was attended to professionally at City Images by Heather with attention to detail all within 24 hours. Highly impressed with the way she handled the assignment and the personal touch given to the job. Will highly recommend City Images anytime.
Professional and Reliable "From start to finish, the team was professional, friendly, and efficient. They kept me updated throughout the process, and the final product was delivered ahead of schedule. Exceptional service and reliability"
Fast, reliable and great quality. Been working with this company for a number of years now, the team is very responsive and helpful. Signage is always good quality and delivered in time. Wholeheartedly recommended!
Always incredible service and quality from the team including Sherif, Francisco, and Heather. Highly recommended.
Most custom packaging boxes resolve into one of two constructions. We prototype both, so you decide holding the box, not comparing renders.
Folding cartons ship flat and assemble at unboxing. SBS and FBB board, 300 to 450gsm, die-cut, creased and glued: the economic route for retail runs, e-commerce and printed mailer boxes.
Rigid set-up boxes arrive assembled on a 1.5 to 3mm greyboard core under a printed, fabric or specialty wrap: the construction behind luxury rigid boxes, magnetic closures and custom presentation boxes, heavier in the hand, made to be kept.
We make custom boxes by every construction type, and buyers think by construction, not by use case. Folding cartons for DTC mailers and retail. Rigid set-up for luxury launches. Magnetic closure for the unboxing reveal. Presentation and gift for the table-side hand-over. Plus the materials and finishes that turn each construction into a brand artefact.
For the DTC operations lead reordering on a quarterly cycle: folding cartons are the workhorse of branded boxes.
Tuck-end, crash-lock and auto-bottom constructions, printed inside and out. Board runs from 300gsm SBS for retail cartons to E-flute and B-flute corrugated for shipping-grade mailers.
Your dieline and CAD files are retained, so the second order skips structural design and goes straight to print.
For the creative director who needs the box on the table the day before the press call: rigid is the premium tier of bespoke packaging.
A 1.5 to 3mm greyboard core wrapped in litho-printed paper, fabric or specialty stock: Wibalin, Skivertex, Surbalin, linen and faux-leather, sourced per project, typically two to four working days into stock.
Arrives assembled, ready to hand over.
For the fragrance or cosmetics brand manager engineering the unboxing reveal: the closure is the choreography.
Hidden magnets sit in the flap and base, with pull strength specified to product weight so the lid feels deliberate, never flimsy. Drawer boxes run a slide-out tray inside a printed sleeve; a blind-debossed monogram on soft-touch black is the most requested premium cue.
For the PR manager working to a launch list of 200 names: this box is the campaign asset.
Custom presentation boxes for the launch table; custom printed presentation boxes where the artwork carries the brand; custom made presentation boxes shaped to a product outside any standard footprint. Hinged-lid and two-piece constructions, custom gift boxes, fabric wraps, ribbon pulls, printed linings.
Common runs sit between 50 and 300 units: luxury gift boxes for Christmas activations, ambassador kits and retail drops.
The short-form spec for any of the four constructions above.
Substrates run from SBS and FBB white-lined chipboard (300 to 450gsm) for folding cartons, through to greyboard (1.5mm to 3mm) for rigid construction, plus E-flute and B-flute corrugated for shipping-grade mailers, kraft (white-back or full kraft) for the recyclable aesthetic, and litho-laminated wraps on board for premium colour fidelity. Specialty wrap papers (Wibalin, Skivertex, Surbalin, fabric and faux-leather) are sourced per project. Finishes: hot foil stamping (gold, silver, copper, rose gold, holographic, Pantone), embossing and debossing, soft-touch lamination, spot UV, gloss and matte lamination, fabric wraps, and combined finishes (spot UV over soft-touch, with foil always as a separate pass). In-house finishing at Camden with real foil available fast, all coordinated on one job ticket. The full breakdown by substrate, print process, finish, insert, and suite component lives in the Substrates and Finishes dropdown group further down the page.
The launch box is judged in the hand. Luxury packaging lives or dies on the wrap, the pull of the lid and the weight of the board, so we keep a materials library at Mayfair: Wibalin, Skivertex and Surbalin wraps, linen and faux-leather papers, finish swatches you can handle the same day you search.
Launch kits, corporate gifting, press and retail drops: the briefs that fill the book. The bespoke packaging London houses commission rarely ships from a portal: one team draws, prototypes and finishes it, with a single Pantone match across every component.
Names stay off this page by policy, not by accident. We sign NDAs readily; the strongest work is the work we never show.
We make the luxury packaging London launches are judged on, and the premium packaging wrap is chosen from a shelf, not a PDF swatch.
Every brief ships with a 2D and 3D CAD dieline, a CNC-cut prototype on the real board stock and full Pantone matching. Cutting is die-free: no tooling charge, no steel to store, an order of one is viable.
2D and 3D structural design; board thickness, grain direction and fold tolerance accounted for. Delivered in DXF, AI or PDF.
Cut on your actual board in one to two working days, folded and assembled before handover. Revise and recut the same day.
Your dieline and CAD files are kept on file, so a repeat run goes straight to production.
The unboxing reveal is half of what the brand is paying for.
Emboss, deboss, spot UV, lamination and CNC die-cutting in-house at Camden, with foil available fast.
Yes. There is no minimum order on custom boxes. Single prototypes, sample sets and runs from one unit upward: custom packaging for small business UK buyers order one box or a thousand from the same house. Custom printed boxes no minimum UK searches end here, made-to-order print on real board, full finishing, sweet spot 50 to 500 units.
City Images. In-house CAD structural design and CNC prototyping, emboss, spot UV and lamination at Camden, a materials library at Mayfair, and no minimum order. Much of the custom packaging London brands hand over at launches is brokered; ours is designed, prototyped and finished by the team you brief.
Three things a screen proof cannot: the lid-and-base fit, the magnet pull-strength against the product weight, and the way the foil or emboss sits on the actual wrap. If anything is off, we revise and recut the same day. That is the step that catches problems before 500 units have already shipped.
Press-ready cutting template delivered in DXF, AI, or PDF for sign-off, so your structural designer or print buyer can audit the file before production. The dieline and CAD files are retained, so every reorder skips the setup step at the original unit cost (subject to material price movement).
A stock-SKU box ordered online cannot tell you how the foil will sit on the actual wrap until 500 units have already shipped. The prototype-first process is the reason brand managers and agency producers come to us instead of flat-pack volume suppliers. For complex packaging engineering, telescoping lids and multi-piece presentation cases, see our cardboard engineering page.
Send the brief today, hold the prototype this week: 020 7874 1900 (Camden), or email post@cityimages.co.uk.
Get a quoteWe produce custom packaging boxes and bespoke packaging boxes from a single prototype to runs above 500 units, with the economic sweet spot sitting in the 50 to 500 unit band. Below 50, the prototype-and-sample tier covers pitch decks and buyer meetings. Above 500, we move to litho-laminate for unit-cost efficiency, and we show both unit costs at quote stage so the call is yours.
CNC-cut on the actual board stock the production run will use. One to two working days. Commonly ordered for pitch decks, buyer meetings, crowd-funding visuals, and structural sign-off before a full run is committed.
Below the made-to-order sweet spot. Useful for senior-stakeholder gifting lists, small ambassador runs, in-house photoshoot props, and the first 25-unit drop of a limited-edition retail tier before the full run is committed.
The entry of the made-to-order sweet spot. The standard band for PR and influencer kits, awards-event gifting, product-launch press lists, and the first-wave retail drop of a limited edition. Digital print on board, full finishing, no plate cost, no minimum.
The centre of our made-to-order economic band. Common for fashion launch kits, beauty and fragrance press drops, ambassador-list activations, Christmas gifting runs, and the second-wave retail roll-out once the first 100 units have been pressure-tested at point of sale.
The ceiling of digital-print economics. The point where we quote both ways, digital and litho-laminate, so you see the unit cost across the threshold. Common for retail roll-outs, multi-SKU launches, and the structural production tier where the dieline and CAD files are retained for the inevitable reorder.
Above 500 units we move to litho-laminate for unit-cost efficiency, Pantone-matched flat colour, fine type and large solid fills across thousands of units. Same finishing range, same Camden production floor, same dieline and CAD file retention for the reorders that follow.
Every custom box order ships with a 2D and 3D CAD dieline, a CNC-cut physical prototype on real board stock, full Pantone matching, dieline and CAD file retention, interior printing as standard, and a press-ready dieline supplied in DXF, AI or PDF. Emboss, soft-touch and spot UV are applied in-house at Camden, with foil available fast in many options.
2D and 3D structural design, board thickness, grain, fold tolerances accounted for. Delivered DXF, AI, PDF.
Physical sample cut on the real board stock, one to two working days, folded and assembled before pack.
Every job, every process. Digital for short runs, litho-laminate above 300 units. Bleed-edge as standard.
Your CAD files and structural spec are held on file for reorders, so a repeat run goes straight to production.
Standard on every made-to-order box. The unboxing reveal is half what the brand is paying for.
In-house emboss, deboss, soft-touch, spot UV, fabric wraps and lining, with real foil available fast. One job ticket, one point of contact.
Walk in to Mayfair (8 Avery Row) for board samples and the finishes library, or Camden (23-27 King's Terrace) to see the CAD bench, the CNC cutter and the finishing room. Bring product dimensions and we will spec at the counter.
Custom boxes rarely ship alone. We design and produce the packaging suite, box, sleeve, belly band, printed tissue, and printed tape, on the same equipment, in the same brief, with one Pantone match running across every component. One artwork brief, one delivery window. The suite that brands the unboxing journey end to end, not five suppliers stitched together.
Most clients brief us for the box plus sleeve plus tissue trio, the working default for fashion launches, beauty drops and limited-edition retail.
Folding carton, rigid set-up, magnetic closure, or presentation gift box.
Printed box sleeve in litho-laminated, kraft, or specialty paper.
Foil-stamped, soft-touch laminated, or printed full colour.
Custom printed tissue, single or full colour, FSC stock as standard.
Pantone-matched printed packaging tape, paper or PVC.
For the full unboxing suite on one PO, phone Camden on 020 7874 1900 with the brief, the brand book, and the product dimensions.
Five dropdowns covering the full made-to-order spec. Board choice drives how the box feels and performs. Print process matches run size and finish. Finish separates a printed box from a packaging artefact. Inserts are where the reveal happens. Suite components turn the box into the full unboxing journey.
Board drives feel and transit performance. SBS and FBB white-lined board, 300 to 450gsm, carries folding cartons; solid bleached board to 650gsm steps up presentation sleeves; greyboard at 1.5 to 3mm is the rigid-box core; E-flute and B-flute corrugated takes shipping weight; kraft gives the recyclable aesthetic on FSC stock. Litho-laminated wraps deliver long-run colour fidelity; specialty wrap papers arrive per project.
Digital print carries most bespoke printed boxes and custom box printing in the 50 to 500 unit range: no plates, no minimum, with metallic, neon and clear toner embellishment in the same pass. Above roughly 500 units a litho-printed wrap laminated to board becomes more economical; we show the unit cost both ways at quote stage. Pantone matching and bleed-edge artwork are standard on either route.
The in-house set at Camden: embossing and debossing, spot UV, soft-touch, gloss and matt lamination, specialty-paper wrapping and CNC die-cutting, plus digital metallic and neon toner on the same ticket. Hot foil stamping is available, fast, with many options: gold, silver, copper, holographic and Pantone-matched foils. Combined finishes, spot UV over soft-touch for example, are mocked on the prototype first; foil is always its own separate pass. For foil across stationery and presentation print, see foil and embossing.
The inside is where the reveal happens. Die-cut card platforms hold the product still; foam-backed inserts are sculpted to its shape; moulded pulp gives a recyclable insert, usually paired with kraft outers; printed tissue and silk linings brand the interior. Insert and box share one CAD file, so fit, lift-out angle and reveal are engineered together.
A custom box rarely ships alone. We print the box sleeve (litho-laminated, kraft or specialty paper), belly band packaging for launches and subscription kits, printed tissue paper in single or full colour on FSC stock, and printed packaging tape, Pantone-matched, paper or PVC. One artwork brief, one Pantone match, one delivery. Seals pair with labels and stickers; hang tags with swing tag printing.
Product, run, deadline. Bring the product. Bring nothing. We have started briefs from both.
CAD structural design and dieline, from your artwork or from scratch by our in-house 2D and 3D design studio.
CNC-cut sample on the real board in one to two working days. Hold it before committing the run.
Print, emboss, laminate, assemble and pack in-house, with foil available fast on the same ticket. Two to three working days from approved prototype; multi-finish jobs run longer.
Eco friendly packaging is a specification, not a compromise. 90% of our paper and board comes from FSC-certified suppliers, our digital presses produce virtually zero waste, no plates, no chemicals, and we recycle through FirstMile on our way to Carbon Neutral by 2029. Kraft, recycled and uncoated FSC stocks take the full finishing range, so an eco brief never downgrades the emboss.
Everything brand managers, ops leads and PR teams ask before placing a custom box brief. Cannot find your answer? We pick up the phone at both locations.
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Call Camden productionNone. A single box is a viable order: cutting runs on a CNC bed with no die and no tooling charge, so one prototype, a ten-unit influencer run or a 500-unit production run all price on materials and time.
One to two working days for a CAD-designed, CNC-cut prototype on your real board stock. Two to three working days for production once the prototype is signed off and artwork is final. Multi-finish jobs run four to five. We quote a delivery date, not a window.
Yes. Our in-house 2D and 3D designers take a product sample, a brand book and a use-case brief and deliver everything from structural dieline to press-ready artwork. The dieline comes to you in DXF, AI or PDF at sign-off, and it is yours to keep.
Embossing, debossing, spot UV, soft-touch, gloss and matt lamination, specialty-paper wrapping and CNC die-cutting all run in-house at Camden, alongside digital metallic, neon and clear toner embellishment. Hot foil stamping is available, fast, with many options. Combined finishes are mocked on the prototype first.
Yes. Your dieline and CAD files are retained, so a reorder skips structural design and goes straight to production. There is no steel die to store or pay for, cutting is CNC and die-free.
We print on food-grade board with food-safe inks and coatings for many food-contact applications, including artisan food, chocolate, bakery and patisserie packaging and food gifting. Food-contact compliance depends on the product, the fill and the contact type, so we confirm the exact food-safe specification with you per job before production rather than claiming blanket certification.
We quote per job: construction, board, dimensions, print coverage, finishing and run quantity all move the price. Unlike much of the packaging printing London buyers are quoted, ours comes off our own floor, not a broker's margin, which is why an order of one is possible. Send the brief to post@cityimages.co.uk.
Yes, as one job: box, printed sleeve, belly band, tissue and Pantone-matched tape from one house, one artwork brief, one delivery. Single-supplier production keeps colour consistent across components; drift usually enters between the box plant and the sleeve printer.
Yes. Mayfair, at 8 Avery Row, holds the materials library: board grades, Wibalin, Skivertex and Surbalin wraps, linen and faux-leather papers, finish swatches. Walk in, handle them, leave with a shortlist. Camden runs the production floor; a bench visit is easy to arrange.
Constantly: it is the heart of the book. Launch kits, ambassador and press boxes, senior-stakeholder gifts and retail-drop packaging for fashion, beauty, galleries and finance. We do not publish client names and we sign NDAs readily; the same discretion covers the luxury packaging and bespoke printed boxes we deliver every week.
Two walk-in locations in central London. Mayfair holds the board samples and finishes library, Camden runs the CAD bench, CNC cutter and finishing room. Both open Monday to Friday. No appointment needed. Walk in with the product itself for the fastest custom box spec.
Email us8 Avery Row, Mayfair, London W1K 4AL
Showroom and materials library. Monday to Friday 09:00 to 18:00.
Walk-in welcome: board samples, wrap papers and finish swatches on the shelf. A short walk from Soho, Fitzrovia, Marylebone, Belgravia, Westminster and Pimlico.
23-27 King's Terrace, Camden, London NW1 0JP
Production floor. Monday to Friday 09:00 to 18:00.
CAD bench, CNC cutting, print and finishing on one floor; the custom boxes London teams collect here are prototyped and built on site. Serving Kentish Town, Islington, Angel, Bloomsbury, Clerkenwell, Hampstead and Primrose Hill.
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