Commercial
Printers and
Label Making
Trends in labels come and go, and design
trends, in particular, can change before
printers can react to them. To keep pace with
what’s happening and how you can best position
your company and services, here are some of the
trends in label production, both design and production,
and how you can capitalize on them.
Simple Is the New Complex
Designers are going minimal, while at the same time making a
bigger statement with strong, bold colors.
Anne Carton, a designer working with Designhill, a custom
design marketplace for sourcing design, puts it well: “It is seen
many times that the buyer doesn’t remember the name or
even the number of the product, but they remember the color
of the product. It is taking the psychology of the buyer towards
the product to a whole new level, and designers are taking it
more seriously than ever.” (“9 Label Design Trends You Need
To Be Aware Of In 2018”, Designhill blog, November 2017.)
Designers cannot create those eye-popping colors in a vacuum,
however. Achieving them takes the right substrates, the
right inks, and the right color management. It takes the right
print partner to make those designs come to life, so give designers
a peek at your workfl ow,
and get the results of your work
into their hands. Do plant tours,
put on seminars, and create and
mail samples.
It’s also a great time to upgrade
your color management capabilities.
“Th e ability to achieve the
kind of colors that designers are
looking for requires the fi ne tuning
of color management,” says Donna
Covannon, director of marketing
NA, at Xeikon. “Th is is where tools
like Xeikon’s X800 Color Management
come in handy since they
allow operators to fi ne-tune the
color on the DFE.”
Th is is also a great time to invest
in educating label designers about
the capabilities of digital, including
inkjet. “With HP Indigo and the
seven-color machines, not only is
the color gamut wider than CMYK,
but it also includes spot colors and
special colors such as high-opacity
white, fl uorescents, and metallics,”
notes Christian Menegon, worldwide
business development manager,
labels and packaging, HP Indigo. “Th e built-in color tools
from Esko allow HP Indigo customers to obtain sharp color
match and even completely out-of-gamut options.”
That Extra Something
Another way to get colors to pop is using embellishments
or varnish. Marsha Frydrychowski, director of marketing
for Resource Label Group, a leader in label production
with 13 production facilities across the country, sees
strong growth in this area.
Resource Label Group has extensive embellishment capabilities,
including foil accents, intricate embossing, and tactile
varnishes, and Frydrychowski sees an increasing number of
designers taking advantage of them.
“Using matte, gloss, and spot varnishes or some level of
texture really allows the color to be enhanced,” she says,
“and combining diff erent varnishes and textures on one label
can create a very unique and sleek eff ect. Th e ability to
enhance simple designs with these techniques is something
we see more and more.”
Because the options for digitally printed labels are less
common, and because conventional embellishment tools
can undermine the fl exibility off ered by digital printing, HP
Indigo is releasing GEM, a “breakthrough” one-pass digital
embellishments solution.
“When connected inline with the HP Indigo 6900 press, GEM
enables digital varnish, foiling, and cast and cure in the same
pass using the same workfl ow,” says Menegon. “Now designers
can easily add variable varnish and variable foiling to their
creative toolsets.”
Let the Substrate Do the Lifting
As label designers go simpler, this also means that the substrate
must do more of the heavy lift ing. Th is is a great time
to test new substrates and order samples of stocks in super
bright shades.
Monadock Paper Mills’ MPM Envi96, for example, is a new
super bright stock developed to make the most of bright,
vivid colors. Lisa Berghaus, director of marketing communications
for MPM, notes that uncoated brilliant white stocks
like Envi96 are particularly appropriate for the craft and
By Heidi Tolliver-Walker
Heidi Tolliver-Walker has been a
commercial and digital printing
industry analyst, feature writer,
columnist, editor, and author for
more than 20 years. Her industry
commentary can be found in
today’s national printing publications,
top industry blogs, and
behind the scenes in well-respected
industry and private
newsletters and marketing
publications.
12 Printing News August 2018 PrintingNewscom
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