Parameters to Consider Before Hiring a Flexographic Label Printing Company

Designing and printing play a key role in an organization’s growth. Whether you own a food company or a pharmaceutical, proper product labeling not only helps you in business promotion, but also in building a brand. Furthermore, well designed and good quality printed labels represent your high corporate standard, which in turn attracts more audience and in turn increases your conversion and sales.

While some companies make a smart choice of advanced printing technologies such as flexographic label printing, others are still struggling to make a mark in the highly competitive market. If you had been ignoring this essential business aspect for a while, it is about time that you found a finest printing and designing company among available options, for your unique printing and designing needs. Below are some key factors that you should keep in mind when hiring a label printing company.

Work Quality

When hiring a printing company, it is important to know about their work quality. You can ask them to show some printing samples, ask them about the ink type and the types of printing techniques they use for printing. While inspecting the samples offered, look for label printing quality as well as the image quality i.e. hazy or clear? Low cost printing packages offered by the printing company is not always a good idea. The reality behind the low cost can prove a wrong decision, as the product printed are not up to standard which will reflect your brand badly. More often than not, cheap price means cheap quality, as printing company uses cheap ink and substrate to offer label printing. We suggest you to select a company that may be a bit more expensive but offers value for money in the form of prime quality work.

Company’s Reputation

Next important factor to consider when hiring a printing company is its reputation. If a company has global status or is popular in the local market, then definitely the company is offering quality work. To ensure the quality services of a particular company, you can also review their website, client list, and years of experience. You can also scan their social media image on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media websites to know their online presence and what people have to say about them. Having said that, sometimes even the start-up printing companies offer quality printing services at reasonable prices. All you need to do is explore your options well, compare services, and make an informed decision.

Level of Customer Service Offered

It is important to ensure the company you are about to hire is trustworthy and offers you quality services with comprehensive client management skills and effective communication. It is always efficient and cost effective proposition to choose a company that can manage your entire project ranging from designing, printing, finishing, binding, to storage as well as guide you at every step indicating what is good and beneficial for your company’s labeling project. some other factors that you can include in your inspection kitty is to visit company’s premises, investigate printer’s green footprint and know the right printing technique for your job.

Conclusion

A quality label printing is a prerequisite for companies to establish as a brand and build long term relationship with their customers. Hope these factors help you identify a good, design, printing and packaging company from among the clutter. Once you have identified the company, carrying a good relationship with your working partner will potentially enable you to get better services in long term such as great offers, discounts, faster turnaround and personal attention to your work.

Find Out why you Need Flexographic Printing

If your company pays attention to product labeling, just like every other process, it becomes important to understand which label printing solution best suits your need. In the last few decades, flexography has become a renowned name in the printing industry and is a very impressive technique, in terms of the high quality of the resultant labels.

Simply put, flexography is a type of rotary printing method that involves the impressing of a raised image onto a flexible relief plate, which then turns the picture out onto a variety of surfaces. The idea is similar to traditional letterpress printing, which uses stamped images and typeface onto paper, in a variety of books, magazines, and newspapers. Why Flexography? From the plate making, mounting, and transfer of images onto the packaging material, flexography is a flexible and versatile means of handling large-scale reproduction of text and images. Moreover, it can also be used for printing labels on various substrates, such as metallic film, plastic, paper, and cellphones, among others. The technique offers many benefits over other types of reproductions, some of which are given below:

1. Availability of a variety of inks, many of which do not require any drying time
2. Compatibility with a variety of porous and non-porous surfaces
3. Ability to use one template to print millions of images
4. No need of re-calculations or adjustment in the middle of the job
5. Capability to print continuous patterns
6. Suitability for solid color printing
7. Equilibrium between safety and durability

Government regulations stipulate guidelines, especially for food packaging. These state that the ink used for labeling shouldn’t wear off, degrade, chip-off or separate easily. However, it is also a fact that most of the food packaging employs various non-porous materials, such as plastic and cellophane, among others, on which traditional methods of printing become futile as traditional ink won’t stick. Flexographic label printing on the other hand sticks to the surface without the possibility of deteriorating or posing safety risks to consumers.

How Cold Foil Printing Saves Time and Money?

Cold foil printing, also known as cold foil stamping, is a modern method of printing metallic foil on a substrate in order to enhance the aesthetic of the final product. Cold Foil Printing can be done two ways, through a dry lamination process or through a wet lamination process which is dominant in the flexo label industry.

How It Works:  Using a standard printing plate, an image is printed onto a substrate with the use of a UV-curable cold foil adhesive. A UV dryer then cures the adhesive which becomes tacky. Foil spools from an unwind and is nipped to a substrate.

Foil sticks to the tacky adhesive on the substrate, and an image with a bright foil surface is created.  Foil that does not adhere to the adhesive remains on a thin polyester liner and waste is directed to a rewind spool. Because the adhesive is applied on press like a conventional ink, no expensive stamping die has to be created.
Once printed, the surface of cold-foil images may be varnished, laminated or encapsulated in order to provide a hard-wearing, durable surface.  Some printing substrates are unsuitable for cold foil transfer. The best results are obtained on glossy coated papers and papers with a smooth surface.

Benefits:  The process does not require stamping tools, but instead uses printing plates, which are cheaper and can be made in a few hours. In contrast, delivery time for an engraved or etched stamping tool can be up to two weeks. Cold foiling is also print receptive. Cold foil surface has low surface energy and in case the overprint is small, only then it will adhere.
With technological advancement, several manufacturers have come up with a more printable range of cold foils in the market. The popularity of cold foil printing is growing worldwide and several companies are opting for the procedure because of its speed and cost effective qualities.

What Kind of Designs and Technical Points Matter in Label Printing?

Label printing gives businesses and manufacturers the opportunity to improve their marketing efforts. The technical points regarding label printing solutions are mentioned here:

Clarity and simplicity are considered the hallmarks of label printing. The simpler and clearer the text printed on a label is, the more it will appeal to consumers.

The labels that manufacturers print for their food products should end up having a strong effect and immediately grab the attention of anyone who sees it for the first time. This is what is expected of Food Product Label Printing that should apprise consumers of the unique features of a food item. The label on a gallon of milk should let buyers know about the health benefits they’ll derive from the consumption of this product.

Label printing is also known to enhance communication between buyers and sellers. Buyers are bound to be influenced when a slogan they’ve heard in an advertisement is seen again on the label of a product. 

Customization forms the core of label printing. A manufacturer can get their labels printed in just about any way to differ from competitors.

As far as label printing is concerned, the points mentioned above don’t constitute the entire checklist that manufacturers should follow. They may learn that there are many other ways to enhance the visual appeal of a product label. Keep these in mind in the beginning stages. 

Food Product Labels Printing: Guiding you to eat Right

“Der Mensch ist, was er ißt” (English version: Man is what he eats)

As said by a famous writer, one is always responsible for what he eats. So, it’s better that you eat healthy and live happy. To do this, you must understand what it really is that you’re eating and how it will affect your body. Therefore, look for some tips to finding the right food when you shop. Here’s a few:

Don't rely on the terminology used: Many food labels have marketing claims on the packaging that mention, “Fat-free”, "Natural", "Organic," or the very commonly used "Low Fat." These are used to attract customers to buy their product. So, it is your prerogative to dig into the genuine details of the product as sellers will definitely put up such labels to increase their sales. Beware of these marketing gimmicks in food product label printing and make a smart purchase.

Pay attention to curtailing fat and sodium. In the nutritional facts panel, the level of fat and sodium in a single serving is mentioned. As stated by The American Heart Association, your diet should only consist of somewhere between 20% - 30% total fat. Sodium intake should remain below 1,500mg per day. Following these guidelines will reduce your chances of chronic illness and heart problems drastically.

Try to increase the amount of fiber in your food and check it on the food product labels. It is not surprising to know that most foods, after getting processed, lose fiber. Therefore, avoid processed food as fiber is what keeps your digestive system in good shape. The nutritional facts panel again reveals the dietary fiber that your food has. An added benefit of fibrous food is that it’s more filling and you end up consuming less. This obviously leads to a smaller consumption of calories.

Summary:

In order to purchase good food, it is essential that you understand the nutritional facts on the printed food product labels. Secondly, always try buying food with fewer ingredients (find them on the food labels), as that means less processing.