Box Designer
The Box Designer is the workspace for designing game box packaging. Boxes have multiple printable faces — top, bottom, front, back, and side panels — each on a separate die-cut sheet that folds into the finished box. Chitmunk gives you a dedicated face navigation strip, TGC overlay templates, and a 3D fold-map preview so you can design every face without losing context.
Box Component Types
Chitmunk supports all TheGameCrafter box types, including:
- Tuck Boxes: Poker-size and other tuck-fold boxes with flap closures.
- Hook Boxes: Retail-style boxes with a display hook cutout and printed outside and inside sheets.
- Rigid Boxes (Stout/Retail): Two-piece lid-and-base boxes: each piece has its own printable flat sheet.
- Deck Boxes: Compact boxes sized for storing card decks, with top-and-side printing.
- Prototype Boxes: Simple folding boxes for prototyping and playtesting.
Select your box type from the component selector. The number of faces available in the face navigation strip will update to match the chosen box type.
Side-by-Side Top and Bottom View
For two-piece rigid boxes (lid and base), Chitmunk displays a side-by-side view showing both the top (lid) sheet and the bottom (base) sheet on the same canvas screen. This lets you see both pieces at once and ensure colors and branding are consistent between them.
Click either piece to make it active for editing. The properties panel, layers panel, and all toolbar actions apply to the active piece. A subtle highlight ring indicates which piece is currently selected.
Tip: Copy a background or logo element from the top piece, then switch to the bottom piece and paste. This ensures brand consistency across both box halves without starting from scratch.
Per-Face Editing
For tuck boxes and hook boxes, a flat die-cut sheet contains all the printable panels (front, back, spine, flap, and walls) arranged in a specific fold pattern. You design the entire flat sheet as one canvas, using the TGC overlay to see where each panel falls.
The face navigation strip shows one tab per printable sheet, not one tab per panel:
- Tuck Box: Outside — a single flat sheet containing every panel (front, back, walls, flap). With only one sheet, no navigation strip is needed.
- Hook Box: Inside and Outside — two flat sheets, each containing every panel on that side.
- Rigid Box: Top and Bottom — the lid sheet and the base sheet.
- Tin Box: Top and Back.
Clicking a face tab switches the canvas to that sheet. Within a sheet, use the TGC overlay's fold lines to see where each individual panel (front, back, wall, flap) sits so you can design it in place.
TGC Overlay Templates
Chitmunk ships TGC's official die-cut overlay images as built-in template assets, so they're available instantly with no extra download. These overlays show:
- Pink/coral background: The bleed area that extends beyond the die-cut line.
- Red lines: Die-cut lines where the cardstock will be cut.
- Green lines: Fold lines where the box panels fold.
- Cyan dashed lines: The safe zone — keep important content inside this boundary.
To toggle the TGC overlay on or off, open the View dropdown in the toolbar and click TGC Template Overlay. The overlay renders on top of your design at reduced opacity so you can see both simultaneously.
Tip: Always design with the TGC overlay visible for box work. The fold lines define your panel boundaries — content that crosses a fold line will be physically bent and may not align as expected.
Face Navigation Strip
The face navigation strip at the bottom of the canvas provides several functions:
- Click a face tab to switch the canvas to that sheet (Inside/Outside, Top/Bottom, or Top/Back depending on box type).
- Selection ring on the face thumbnail shows which sheet is currently active before you double-click in to edit it.
Box Fold Map Visualization
The 3D Preview (open it from the Component Catalog in the Game Home dashboard sidebar) renders an interactive 3D model of your box with textures pulled from your flat design at the moment you open it. Each face panel from the flat sheet is automatically mapped to the correct face of the 3D model using Chitmunk's built-in fold map data.
Use the 3D preview to:
- Check that text and logos appear correctly oriented on each face.
- Verify that elements near fold lines won't be awkwardly split.
- See the box from multiple angles before sending it to print.
- Spot inconsistencies in color or branding across faces.
Drag to rotate the 3D model. Scroll to zoom. Close and reopen the preview to refresh it with your latest edits — it doesn't update live while you're still editing the flat design.
Tips & Best Practices
- Extend backgrounds to the bleed edge: The pink bleed zone in the TGC overlay must be covered. Extend background colors and images to the very edge of the template. Any white areas in the bleed zone will print as white.
- Stay inside the cyan safe zone: Keep all text, logos, and critical imagery inside the cyan dashed line. Anything outside may be cut or hidden at the fold.
- Avoid crossing fold lines with text: Text that crosses a green fold line will be bent at a 90-degree angle and become unreadable. Design text to fit within individual panels.
- Match colors across faces: Use the eyedropper tool to pick colors from one face and apply them to another. Consistent color across all faces looks more professional and polished.
- Design the top face first: The top face is the most visible when the box is on a shelf or table. Start there and establish your visual identity before designing the sides and back.
- Check the 3D preview regularly: What looks correct on a flat sheet can be surprising in 3D. Open the 3D preview after designing each major face to catch orientation issues early.