specialty:packaging

By Randy Paar

I wanted to resist the urge to say ‘think outside the box,’ but that is exactly what you’ll need to do in order to capture a growing and lucrative segment of the digital printing industry that is ripe for harvest. And in this case, the ‘box’ isn’t a concept, it’s literal: the packaging. The convergence of markets and technologies due to digitalization in the graphics industry provides new spin-off opportunities, and short-run packaging work—be it prototyping or cus-tom—is one of those opportunities.

Packaging is a large, established industry that, compared to other industries is relatively stable despite the economy. Almost all items are sold with some form of packaging. To keep a competitive edge in the marketplace, packaging designs change more often than the products they contain. This means continual demand for prototypes, short-run and custom printing and cutting.

Taking it

Outside the Box

Using a digital flatbed printer lets you print prototypes directly onto semi-rigid media, and an automated cutting system can trim, cut, and crease the item quickly and easily.

A variety of packaging prototypes—on rigid and flexible media—can be created on digital equipment.

january/february 2010

Packaging designers benefit greatly from quality pro-totypes but very often lack the space or budget to pur-chase printers and cutters themselves. They do, however, have the budget for purchasing this service from a local graphics shop.

Current Prototyping Processes Could Benefit From a Full Digital Solution

The prototype is important at many levels—from determining the most appealing design with focus groups and brand managers, to finding the most cost effective, sustainable design and ultimately landing the production work for the packaging manufacturer. It makes sense for the packaging designer to present the highest quality prototypes to the client.

Consider the current prototyping process: many packaging designers and manufacturers are still first determining their structural design and then either cutting paperboard with a razor or at best with a digital sample cutter. Once the final structural design is agreed upon, the graphics can be produced. Graphics are then printed on some other device—be it a proofer, small offset press, inkjet or color laser printer—and then literally applied in a separate operation before or after cutting. This means the prototype may not look quite like the final product—the whiteness of the paper and the color gamut of the printer can be very different. And what if the proposed base is supposed to be colored or textured?

Compounding the problem is that usually more than just one prototype is required to satisfy all those focus groups, brand managers, etc., that need to see the lat-est iteration of the design. All that has to happen before considering any short run production for a possible test market! The risk of damage (leading to extra print runs), additional steps, labor and long turnaround times are much like those experienced in the world of large-format graphics production.

Digital Flatbed and Automated Cutting Change the Game

This is where your expertise in large-format digital printing—and the right mix of printing and cutting hard-ware and software—can pay off in servicing this market. Advances in digital printing technologies have streamlined the process for creating digitally produced large-format graphics and now packaging prototypes.

Flatbed printers have been one of the fastest growing segments of large-format printing technology due to their ability to print directly to rigid substrates, eliminating the need to mount roll-based prints onto boards.

Automated cutting systems with sophisticated work-flow software to manage cutting and nesting complete the print-and-cut process.

What will you need to go after this market? (1) A high-quality flatbed printer that uses a

stationary table, where the print gantry moves over the media rather than moving the media under the print gan-try. A stationary table ensures precise registration and eliminates potential distortion problems in the cutting stage. A strong advantage is selecting a printer that offers two additional features: (a) the ability to print onto roll media and (b) support for white ink.

Roll media support is particularly beneficial when printing prototypes that use both rigid and flexible sub-strates. The client is assured of the same color fidelity and high quality no matter the media. With white ink capability, you can print prototypes directly onto colored or clear media and substrates.

(2) A robust digital cutting table with a wide vari-ety of easy-to-use tools for cutting, creasing, routing and trimming. This is an investment that can pay you back greatly if used to maximum advantage and not just for finishing packaging jobs.

(3) A software system that can automatically and intelligently nest images for maximum media usage and streamline the workflow.

With the right printer/cutter/software mix, you can now go from ‘zero to sixty’ in no time and produce the highest quality prints onto a wide range of substrates; cut, crease and route the material; and ship it to the package designer all in the same day. Producing this the old way would have taken days and required far more labor and expense.

For existing graphics shops, the ability to produce custom, short-run and prototype packaging represents not only potential new revenue but can be a value-add in promoting your own products and services. For example: a company that sells custom pop-up displays can cus-tomize the box to include variable data graphics that rep-resent the customer, the setup location, unique assembly instructions, thumbnail image, theme, etc. Compared to just a plain box, the unspoken statement is one of full service to your customers. It’s a value-add for your clients and a boost for your reference potential.

The capabilities of flatbed-based UV printers and digital cutting systems can give you the ability to enter new markets, and packaging prototyping is just one example. ❖

Randy Paar has worked in the graphics industry for more than 30 years in a variety of capacities and technologies including screenprint, photographic, electrostatic, and inkjet, plus graphic design and pro-duction. He is currently based in Chicago as the dis-play graphics product marketing manager for Océ North America. He can be reached via email at randy.paar@oce.com

Posted with permission from Wide-Format Imaging. Copyright © 2010. All rights reserved. www.Wide-FormatImaging.com#1-27559076 Managed by The YGS Group, 717.505.9701. For more information visit www.theYGSgroup.com/reprints.

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