Making a good impression

25 September 2013



Increasing customer demands mean that packaging in 2013 needs to work even harder than ever to promote the product within. Brand-owners want faster routes to market but at the same time, require more complex packaging designs, finds Tim Sheahan


'Online sales will kill packaging design' is set to be a fiercely debated topic at the latest iteration of the Packaging Innovations event from easyFairs, which takes place in London next month. Influential figures from companies such as Marks & Spencer and Innocent Drinks will be discussing the various ways in which packaging designs need to adapt in order to meet the stringent and exacting demands placed on them by retailers and consumers.

In an age where an increasing number of consumers are turning to online for their retail requirements, the importance of packaging in the wider marketing mix can be hotly disputed. One argument is that brands need to place an ever-greater emphasis on their packaging to ensure that it stands up in the face of quality competition on shop shelves. Equally, it can be argued that consumers shopping for their groceries, electronic goods, and other household items are more concerned with the freshness, quality and reliability of the product in hand rather than how attractive the packaging is.

Market conditions
However, it would be a mistake to assume that the high street market for consumers is dead; quite the opposite. While a number of shops will continue to struggle in the face of challenging economic conditions, the general public is as insatiable as ever in its search for the right product. As a result, packaging has an integral role to play.

A key part of the packaging production equation is in the prepress operation. Greater product variation means there are an increasing number of files for packaging converters to handle. This results in more plates to produce, and in many cases where consistency is paramount, quality production onto on a wide range of substrates.

According to Mark Anderton, managing director at colour management specialist Colour Engine, in recent years there have been both opportunities and challenges for converters looking to improve their prepress operations.

"Automation has been an anathema to companies providing their packaging expertise to big brands with the application of secret sauce and black arts," he says. "In a marketing campaign there may be a requirement for packaging print processes including litho, gravure, flexo and digital. The preparation of these files can to a large degree be automated using colour server technology such as Alwan CMYK, which is proven.

Anderton adds that hand crafting and retouching in Photoshop by individual Mac operators certainly "has it's place" but in his
experience, the adaptation of files on-the-fly and the intelligent use of Devicelink technology is much faster, more consistent and will give a better result.

"One example of how the packaging prepress sector has advanced is in the retouching of packaging images. This is something that used to take hours can now be carried out in less than two minutes. So the problem in some cases is not 'does the technology work?' but 'yes I see it works but I didn't understand how huge the time msavings could be'," he explains.

Colour creation
UK-based Colour Engine, which distributes Alwan Color Expertise software, has seen a significant number of packaging companies
spend "thousands" annually employing prepress specialists to build ICC profiles. These profiles are data sets that characterise a colour input, output device or colour space, according to recognised standards circulated by the International Color Consortium (ICC). They commit to these investments because they are valuable ICC profiles that are globally accepted and can be used as common currency throughout a packaging workflow.

"The ICC profile can be loaded into proofing RIPS to deliver colour accurate hard copy proofs, but also loaded into remote director softproofing technology to deliver colour accurate proofs on a monitor," explains Anderton. "The commercial advantages of viewing how the job is going to print using a browser in real-time with your client is a game changer."

With this in mind, all signs are pointing in one direction, the gradual adoption of softproofing in the packaging prepress space.
But there are a number of issues to be aware of in this field. The look and feel of a hard copy proof is important to many brand-owners, as it is a comfort to those about to spend on a "We were at a client and the customer pulled a product out of a drawer and a hard copy proof which couldn't get close to the colour on the package. You could hear a pin drop as the monitor showed the colour perfectly, and it matched the final product, while the hard copy didn't," says Anderton.

However, there is a dawning realisation that a proof on screen, thanks to monitors calibrated to the ISO 12646 standard and a
proof-viewing environment verified to ISO 3664:2009, is just as accurate.

Monitors have the inherent advantage that the range or gamut of colours that can be proofed on screen is often larger than that of
ink and paper.

Product proof
Another company that is making great strides in the field of packaging prepress and colour management is GMG Color. This supplier
has committed to next month's Packaging Innovations show where it is set to showcase its new OpenColor software, which has gained positive market traction since its launch last year.

OpenColor proofing software has been designed by GMG to represent pure spot colours while also simulating often-complex
overprinting behaviour that can take place in the process.

According to GMG, the key selling point of OpenColor is the program's ability to create multicolour profiles that can simulate the
printing behaviour across a range of printing technologies and substrates. It can do this without the requirement for conventional
chart-based press fingerprinting. Spot colour simulation is achieved by coupling ink measurements with spectral modelling algorithms to analyse the properties of each ink colour as well as that of the substrate.

Elsewhere, software such as the popular Remote Director enables operators to leverage its spectral blending engine to achieve the
accurate replication of not just a wide range of spot colours but also the overprint of spot on spot and the simulation of dot gain ramps.

This means packaging converters can accurately predict the way in which the final printed job is going to print. Importantly for
demanding brand-owners, this also takes into account the actual printing press dot gain and substrate used.

One of the prominent benefits of this technology to multinational packaging brands is that a reliance on hard proofs, and the transport time and costs involved are eliminated. Such technology can colour accurate proofs in a browser in real-time for collaborative sign-off and, importantly, at much lower cost per proof.

According to Mark Anderton, such areas of the prepress operation will only increase in popularity as time goes on.

"We're talking about a gradual progress of softproofing taking over from hard copy proofing, an evolution if you like rather than a revolution," he says. "But for those companies who really want to drive costs down it's an area of technology that should be looked at with some urgency."

Workflow workspace
In the workflow space, Kodak recently launched the latest iteration of its Prinergy Workflow software. Designed to centralise and
automate print production, Version 6 is focused on automation and efficient print production. Comprising software modules such as Kodak Colorflow and the latest Kodak Insite Prepress Portal, Version 6 adds a new interface known as Workspace. This has been designed to easily manage and track jobs to press.

It also enables operators to both set up and save a series of tasks that are associated with a certain printing press technology or equally, a set of production conditions. This is claimed to help handle "specific sets of production jobs" at the touch of a button.

While new printing press technology may take most of the glory, especially at tradeshows attracting potential customers to see lightning-speed press production, prepress suppliers continue to develop exciting and innovative new software.

"Undoubtedly, the growth of online sales will impact on an essential need for packaging and, as always, the industry will evolve to effectively support the branding initiatives that have worked so well on the retail shelf," adds Kevin Vyse, UK managing director of the Institute of Packaging Professionals. But with the latest developments in prepress continuing apace, converters can be assured this side of their operation will be at the top if its game.



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