Hot Stamp Printing: Time to Transform Your Brand

Hot stamp printing is a process whereby an engraved image, hot stamping die or type, is heated and then forced down fronting a part with a marking foil sandwiched in between. It is a dry printing technique of lithography in which pre-dried ink or foils are fronted to a surface at high temperatures.The surface where the die meets the part is where the ink from the foil makes its mark. Though this may be a simplified description of hot stamp printing, it is the basis of the mechanism, and where you need to start.

How Does it Work?

The press-hardenable material heats to over 900 degrees, to an austenite temperature in an oven, during the initial stage of the press line. The material is then transferred quickly to a press, and the part forms while the material is heated. The part then gets a cooling - put in a water-cooled die basin - for some few estimated seconds at the bottom of the stroke. During this process of cooling, the material's grain structure converts from an austenitic state to a martensitic condition.

Why Choosing Hot Stamping?

• Hot stamping can be applied to mark a multitude of different materials, the most common substrate being plastic.

• The most positive part about hot stamping is that it is a dry process. You don't need to have a bunch of degrees in chemistry to operate a hot stamp printing machine as you don't need to bother with mixing inks.

• Hot stamp printing is a long-lasting process. When a component gets printed with a fitly formulated film, it can withstand some very harsh situations. When applying a metal die against a plastic part, you can brand the part at the same time. So, if it happens that the color fades or wears off, the labelled image will remain there.

Advantages of the hot stamping technique

High Tensile Strength.

Some relatively complex parts are produced in a single-step die when applying modern hot stamp printing process. The outcome is a complex, near-net-shape part possessing yield strengths, many times stronger than a mild steel part.

Complex Components

Multi-component assemblies can be re-designed and formed as one element. Hot stamping permits the forming of complex parts in one stroke thereby eliminating some downstream joining processes such as welding.

No Springback

Most probably hot stamping's most significant merit, apart from its strengthening capacity, is its stress-relieving capability that resolves shortcomings with springback and warping. These two present a common problem when forming advanced high-strength steel (AHSS) and high-strength steel (HSS).

Hot Stamp Printing: Utility to Businesses  

Producing business cards, promotional stuff, compelling product packaging, and so on, are essential for the effective promotion of any company. While it may seem plausible to accomplish that by using regular printing methods, there are still other attractive surface techniques that are ideal for producing more compelling surface treatments as well.  The hot stamp printing machine employs foil and fuses the foil material into the surface, ideally on paper to produce a brilliant surface shine that looks professional and stylish.

Conclusion

Hot stamp printing is a permanent process. When you mark a part with a fitly formulated foil, it can withstand some very rough conditions. When applying a metal die on a plastic substrate, you can effectively brand the part at the same time. So, if the color should fade in the course of time, or wear off, the labelled image will remain. Is your business using this printing technique? Share your comments and experiences with foil printing or any alternatives you may be using.

Recycling of Shrink Sleeves Labels: A Positive Future Outlook

Shrink sleeves offer a lot of benefits to brand owners such as label landscape for product promotion, placement of information and scope for creation of decorative packaging. The shortcoming for shrink sleeve labels is, however, recycling. The issue of sustainability and recycling that still continues to muddle the label and packaging industry. This kind of label mandates removal before recycling the pet bottles.

Findings on Sleeve Label Material

Recyclers, nonetheless, have witnessed progress on shrink sleeves. They are working hard to find feasible solutions to difficulties encountered in recycling containers that use shrink sleeve labels. Things are getting much better for the future recyclability of shrink labels. According to the Association of Postconsumer Plastic Recyclers (APR), a trade group, new label technologies are commercially available from many suppliers.

The challenge that exists now is to drive these technologies into actual commercial use. APR is hopeful about the future of shrink sleeves’ recycling. More and more companies today are creating sleeve label film that is easily separable from the PET bottle at the time of recycling. Historically, sleeve label material has been made from glycol-modified PET or PVC. Both PET and PVC plastics sink in water and mix with PET flake. The development of new polyolefin label by a few of the label manufacturers, however, offers an option for label pieces to float in a separation tank.

Recommendations of the APR

Companies using shrink labels need to follow the recommendations put forth by the APR. It recommends companies to use sleeve labels that remain afloat in water and isolate them from PET flakes in a sink or float material separation step. They also recommend using printed label inks that do not stain PET flakes while washing or rinsing during the recycling process. It is necessary for companies to use an APR guidance document to examine the effect of a label on PET bottle recycling. Moreover, they need to utilize shrink sleeves labels that leave minimum 20 percent of PET bottle surface area open.

Research of the APR in 2013 showed recyclers spending about two to four cents per pound of reprocessed plastic to remove shrink sleeves. The use of these labels registered seven to nine times growth from 2007 to 2013.

The Road Ahead

Brand owners of consumer goods are mindful of sustainability and recycling issues when it comes to shrink labels. They are all set to adopt easily recyclable shrink-sleeve label film. Renowned companies such as Coca Cola shifted to recyclable shrink sleeve material for its holiday orb bottle. The big challenge, however, is the pace at which the companies can push the use of recyclable shrink sleeves label.

Selecting a Suitable Label Printing Material: A Concise Guide

The way you label a product has a direct impact on the purchase decisions of your target customers. Labeling and packaging not only protect your products from damage, but also play an important role in developing the image of your brand. A majority of the customers choose products that have shinier and attractive labels before judging the quality or characteristics of the product. Shrink sleeve, cold foil, flexographic are some of the printing technologies used for designing innovative labels. To create that perfect label, however, it is necessary to understand the various labeling materials and their specific uses.
Vinyl

A cost-effective material, vinyl label enhances the physical appearance of a product. Vinyl labels are easy to cut into any shape and use on any product. Clear, white and clear static cling vinyl are three types of vinyl labels you can use, depending on your specific requirements.

Polyethylene

Polyethylene is durable, pliable and suited for products that need better stretch resistance. It easily adheres to curved surfaces and, therefore, considered an appropriate for packaging food, pharmaceutical and FMCG products.

Paper

Commonly used for promotions, barcodes, paper labels can also be used on the product directly. Paper labels offer good value for money and have different finishes that provide additional protection and add to the appeal of the labels.  

Polypropylene

Polypropylene is waterproof, moisture resistant, tear proof and durable, which makes it ideal for labeling shower gels and other health and beauty products. White and clear polypropylene are the two of the most commonly used types of polypropylene labels.

Polyester

One of the most commonly used labeling material, polyester labels are appropriate for all types of applications such as product identification and asset labels for many products. Polyester labels also provide high durability and excellent resistance to temperature and chemicals. 

Conclusion

 

The product label you use delivers your sales message, and so it is necessary to choose the right labeling material. The right labeling material enhances the durability and aesthetics of your products. Lastly, in addition to choosing the right material and design, it is imperative to ensure the label printing company you select has proven competence, and substantial experience in delivering on the specific printing requirements of your industry. 

Learn the Right way to Choose a Label Printing Solution

Whether or not you are making heavy investment on your product’s advertising, if you are not branding it correctly, there is a good chance that you might probably fail to attract potential customers. As they say, ‘first impression is the last impression’, if your product fails to make that first impression in front of your potential consumers, you are probably missing a huge chunk of revenue from product sales.  Time and again, market has witnessed failure of many manufacturers even before they started—failure to create the first impression being primary reason. 

When we talk about first impression, product labeling is the most effective and practical tool to drive consumers towards the product. No doubt there is no dearth of label printing solutions in the market, but choosing the right one is major concern. In this brief read we have discussed factors you need to consider before making the choice.

Factors to Consider

Your labels on your products are not just stickers, they are lot more than that. Labels are important to name your product and let the world know what the packaging has to offer. To send the right message to your consumers and to make a lasting impact, a lacklustre label is not going to work. You need a smart label solution that is applicable to your product’s container. Here are the 4 features to help you pick the right label.

Application

It is important to take note of the type of material and shape of your product’s container as not all labels available in the market are compatible with all kind of materials. As opposed to stretched labels, shrink sleeve labels are more flexible and thus compatibility with almost all types of material and sizes. Also consider the environment in which your product will be used. Most labels will apply smoothly at room temperature, however, same labels may not behave the same in extreme heat conditions.

Appearance

The key role of label is to enhance on-shelf visual appeal of the product without having to compromise with the information provided on the label. Having said that, different products have different appearance requirements, for example the kind of printing used on label packaging for food products may not be suitable for pharmaceuticals.

Labeling Types

Whether you want the whole product container covered under label or just a part of it, is another essential factor to choose the right label packaging. Considering the market trend, shrink sleeve label is the most preferred choice among numerous marketers as the label provides full coverage irrespective of the size or shape of the container.

Cost-effectiveness

The cost incurred is of course a key factor to choosing type of label. You will find many label printing solutions providers promising cheap cost, but don’t get lured by cheap prices for they might compromise the quality.

Bottom-line

Choosing the right label for any product is necessary to give it a brand identity and social acceptability. Always choose a credible label printing solutions provider who helps you choose the right label printing solution for your product.

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.

Flexographic Printing - An Overview

Flexographic Printing: Flexography is the method of printing images and words onto paper, foil or film. It is the combination of two different forms of printing: rotogravure and letterpress, but it is done with flexible plates. Flexographic Printing is the method of direct rotary printing where a special rubber or photopolymer material is used. The printing plates are fixed to the plate cylinders at different repeat lengths. These plates are inked by a cell structure used to meter the flow of the ink on the roll. The structure carries ink to the plates to print on different surfaces. 

There are five components involved - ink pan, fountain roll, plate cylinder, anilox roll and impression cylinder. 

The ink pan is a large industrial-type pan filled with ink. The fountain roll is suspended partially in the pan to transfer the ink onto the anilox roll as each of them is rotating. After the ink reaches the anilox roll, the roll gets covered with some amount of ink on its dimpled surface. Extra ink is scraped from the roll. It is the dimpled surface on the roll that ensures the right amount of ink is being transferred to the plate cylinder. The cylinder then rotates to cover the ink on the raised areas. As the cylinder rotates, an impression cylinder pulls the printing material that is to be printed. Every revolution of a printing plate cylinder produces an image. So, if an image is stamped multiple times around a cylinder, several images will be printed in one revolution. 

 Flexography Plates: The first step involved in flexographic printing is the development of flexographic plates. These can be created by using a UV reactive polymer, digital platemaking or by creating a mold. 

What Makes Flexographic Printing Popular? 

● It is simple to operate 

● Either UV or water-based inks can be utilized 

Since the flexographic printing process can be used to print on a variety of materials, it is ideal for the printing of pressure sensitive labels, shrink sleeves, pouches and other packaging products.

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.