Joining (Graphic products option)

Open out a cereal box, a perfume carton or a child's pop-up book and you are looking at the joining decisions a graphic-products designer made long before the printing was even chosen. A net of card becomes a rigid box only when its faces are held together, and the way they are held - glued flap, tucked tab, slotted joint or a riveted fastener - decides whether the product is permanent or can be flat-packed, whether a customer can reseal it, and whether it survives a drop from a supermarket shelf.

This note works through the joining methods you must be able to select and justify for paper, card and board products: adhesives of different kinds, the integral card joints (slots, arrow tabs and flaps) that need no glue at all, pre-manufactured components such as eyelets and bindings, and mechanical fasteners. For each method you will learn what it is, when it is the right choice, and the trade-off between a permanent join and a temporary one.