Printing, Proofing, and Brand Management
Printing and Proofing Creativity
Pre-Press art manipulation is an aspect of the graphic design industry that many designers are unfamiliar with. The process of becoming a designer often bypasses the real-world execution of an imagined outcome. This is where the practice of color management, separation, and print experience comes in handy. First-hand knowledge of the print process, its advantages, and limitations are important to delivering a great product to your customer.
So much of graphic design requires the hand of an expert that bridges the gap between the “concept” and the “reality” of printing on paper or plastic. Skills in Color Management and Brand Management are needed to make a product line appear consistent on the shelf. Across all media the customer wants to know that the art will appear the same printed on bright paperboard, mylar or plastic. Graphics Design, https://www.prepressure.com/prepress
Foil Stamps and Embossing (designing with texture)
Embossing creates a 3D effect on a 2D surface that brings a tactile interaction between the consumer and the product. In this way, a product will have greater shelf appeal. Embossing is a technique that creates a feeling of superior quality and value. Foil stamping gives packaging a shine that makes products pop off the shelf. Done correctly it can bring a level of class to a package.
If it is flexographic or lithographic printing, packaging requires knowledge of ink and paper and how the two mesh. Too often that which is designed for the internet ignores the limits of real-world printing. However it also often ignores the great potential it has in the form of very visceral forms of expression such as special inks, materials, hot stamps, embossings, and other methods that we interact with in the real world daily.
https://pine.org/, https://zevendesign.com/graphic-designers-guide-embossing/, https://zevendesign.com/graphic-designers-guide-foil/
In my work at Jay Packaging Group, (Now the Rorher Company) https://www.rohrer.com.
Mixed Media Printing, Combining Flexography and Lithography on plastics.
Printing on plastics can be a challenge but can yield fantastic results. For these Unilever products, the challenge was to great a heavy and bright white for the opaque portions of the package while allowing the colored sections to have the luminescence of backing light shining through the plastic packaging. All skills must come to bear as flexo and lithographic use very different inks.
The flexo inks are nicely Opaque and save on passes through the press when coating a background. This job was reduced from having five to seven lithographic white plates to a flexo white and two litho plates gaining more coverage with less passes through the printing press. The more transparent nature of litho ink provides the translucent coloration needed for these Nexxus® Shampoo packages. All this leads to cost savings and a much more pronounced look. https://www.flexography.org
Brand Management
A function of the production artist is to insure the consistency of a brand along its various incarnations. This would include color, content, and the proportion of the elements that go into a brand’s identity. Brand management not only insured design consistency but encompasses print production uniformity as well. An understanding of print media and methods goes a long way to insure a customer’s image meets the consumer’s eye with no confusion as to their identity.
