When a cosmetic brand develops a new eyeshadow palette, choosing whether the packaging should be designed by a creative design agency or directly by the packaging factory is a strategic decision. You need to balance creative differentiation with manufacturability and cost control. This article compares the strengths and weaknesses of both options from the perspective of eyeshadow palette compacts and related cosmetic packaging.
Core Question: Pros and Cons of Design Agencies vs. Packaging Factories
For new eyeshadow palette packaging, the key trade-off is between creativity and production feasibility. The core differences are outlined below.
Advantages of Design Agencies
Stronger creativity and trend sensitivity
Design agencies are usually more in tune with Gen Z aesthetics and social-media trends. They understand elements such as magnetic closures, minimalistic silhouettes, and eco-friendly materials, and can create highly differentiated outer shell designs and color stories that help products stand out on platforms like Xiaohongshu and TikTok/Douyin.
Professional concept development capability
Agencies are good at outputting high-level concept decks and visual directions, especially for complex and highly innovative eyeshadow compacts, such as asymmetric or irregular shells, multi-tier or multi-panel opening structures, or palettes that combine mirror, brush compartment, and refillable pans in one compact.
Disadvantages of Design Agencies
High risk of concepts that are hard to manufacture
If the team is unfamiliar with injection molding and tooling constraints, they may deliver designs that “look amazing but cannot be tooled” or only work with a much higher mold budget. For example, a “petal-shaped” eyeshadow compact shell might require extremely complex tooling and push the mold investment to 300,000 RMB, exceeding the original budget, or a lid and base with an overly complicated snap-latch and hinge design featuring uneven wall thickness might require five sampling rounds before achieving acceptable closing torque and fit.
Hidden costs in the design process
Standalone design fees can add a noticeable percentage to the overall project budget. In addition, if the design must later be revised to meet injection molding or assembly requirements, change requests and additional engineering rounds can incur additional charges beyond the original design quote.
Advantages of Packaging Factories
Better alignment with production processes
Packaging factories are directly connected with the injection molding process and tooling design. They understand practical constraints such as minimum draft angles (e.g.,≥ 1.5° according to SPI recommendations), recommended wall thickness ranges of 0.8–3 mm for the compact shell, and the importance of keeping wall thickness variation ≤ 1 mm to avoid warpage and sink marks. As a result, they can reduce the gap between design and mass production and often shorten the development cycle by 1–2 weeks.
More controllable cost structure
For many projects, structural design and appearance adjustment fees are embedded in the overall packaging quotation, without a separate design line item. Factories can optimize mold layout, gate, positions, and core-pull structures to lower unit costs in mass production, which is attractive to buyers who prioritize a predictable cost per piece.
Disadvantages of Packaging Factories
Severe homogenization of designs
To reduce risk, many factories prefer to reuse existing mold families and proven eyeshadow compact structures. The resulting designs may be very similar to competitors’ designs. In some cases, the palette shell, pan layout, and lid profile are so close to another brand’s compact that they trigger “copycat” complaints from marketing or even competitors.
Limited ability to create breakthrough concepts
The in-house design or engineering team at a packaging factory tends to be process-oriented rather than concept-driven. Their work focuses on adapting existing mold frames, hinge structures, and pan configurations instead of proposing disruptive new forms. This makes it difficult to break out of the existing tooling framework, especially for brands that want strong visual differentiation on the shelf and on social media.
Key Pain Points of the Two-Party Collaboration Models
1. Disconnect between design and production
When the design agency does not understand injection molding and assembly constraints, its concept for the compact hinge, lid opening angle, or undercut features may be unrealistic. The packaging factory then has to request multiple revisions, and the sampling timeline can extend by a full month or more before the eyeshadow palette compact passes functional tests.
2. Homogenization and lack of innovation
When brands rely on “free design” from packaging factories, the factory often reuses existing eyeshadow compact mold families. The result is that the new launch “looks the same as everyone else,” leading to limited market acceptance and weaker sell-through.
3. Finger-pointing over responsibility
When separate companies handle design and production, accountability can become blurred. If the compact fails testing, the designer may blame poor process capability at the factory, while the factory blames an unrealistic design. This back-and-forth can delay the launch by two months or more and damage the relationship among the brand, agency, and supplier.
4. Copyright and IP risks
If IP ownership is not clearly defined, a designer may sell the same or a very similar eyeshadow palette design to a competing brand. Once this is discovered, accusations of plagiarism arise, the original brand’s differentiation disappears, and sales can drop sharply.
Three-Step Framework for Effective Decision-Making and Risk Control
1. Choose the collaboration model based on project type
For complex, highly innovative eyeshadow palettes: let a design agency lead the concept phase and focus on outer shell form, lid opening experience, pan layout, decorative elements, and overall visual language. Then involve a packaging factory early to optimize for manufacturability, such as simplifying core-pull structures, ensuring even wall thickness in the compact, reducing undercuts, and confirming realistic tooling costs. This “agency + factory” model reduces the risk of over-designed concepts that cannot be mass-produced.
For cost-efficient or fast-to-market projects: work directly with a packaging factory that has in-house structural and graphic design capability. Require them to show recent eyeshadow palette case studies from the last six months, including photos or short videos of tooling, sampling, and drop tests, so that you can verify both their creative ability and their process control.
2. Dual risk control on manufacturability and IP
DFM (Design for Manufacturability) review: use a DFM checklist tailored to cosmetic compacts to verify key parameters at the design stage: draft angle ≥ 1.5° (following SPI recommendations), wall thickness variation ≤ 1 mm across the compact shell, no more than two undercut areas requiring core pulls, hinge design that can withstand repeated opening/closing cycles, and pan cavity tolerances aligned with your pressed powder specs. This helps avoid “purely conceptual” designs that look great in renderings but fail at the tool shop.
Clear IP ownership and traceability: sign a tripartite agreement among the design agency, packaging factory, and brand. If the design concept directly causes manufacturing issues, the agency is responsible for the redesign effort and associated costs. At the same time, register the key design files’ hash values (e.g., SHA-256) in a trusted digital or blockchain-based registry so that the original design can be traced and proven in the event of an IP dispute.
3. Tight control over contracts and workflow
Detail the contract clauses: include a “mass producibility” clause stating that the final eyeshadow compact design must be confirmed in writing by the packaging factory as feasible within the agreed mold budget. Clarify IP clauses, such as prohibiting the designer from creating substantially similar designs for direct competitors for at least two years. These details significantly reduce downstream disputes.
Stage-gate confirmations: implement a structured review flow: 2D concept boards and sketches → 3D CAD model and moldflow analysis → 3D printed prototype or SLA sample of the compact. At each stage, have all parties sign off before moving forward. This reduces late-stage changes and rework once cutting steel for the mold has begun.
Conclusion
Eyeshadow palette packaging design should be driven by both creativity and manufacturing engineering. Design agencies can help brands push the boundaries of innovation and aesthetics, while packaging factories ensure that the compact can actually be tooled, molded, and assembled at scale. By selecting the right collaboration model based on project type, adding robust DFM reviews, and locking down IP ownership and contract details, brands can better balance cost, innovation, and risk — and bring new eyeshadow palettes to market faster, with fewer surprises.
