Small Changes Make Better Labels
Quality flexographic printing begins with design. By outlining reverse type, adding a stroke to white text, and overprinting elements in one color, your label quality will improve dramatically. There will ALWAYS be a small amount of misregistration on any printing press, and these simple art techniques can completely hide that from the eye of the consumer.
Reverse Copy is the Killer!
Reversing small text out of multiple colors spells trouble on press. Overprinting (and enlarging) will improve print quality.
When 4 or more colors are printed, with text knocked out, they must be in 100% perfect registration to print clean, crisp white text. Sadly, at high speed this really isn’t achievable consistently.
Small changes that don’t compromise the artwork integrity provide crisp text on every label.
Outlines to the Rescue!
With a small black outline, you can hide any possible movement on press. This border around the letters hides any stray movement. It also makes the small type appear more crisp and readable to the eye.
Additionally, printing the Independent Craft logo in Black, over the other colors, is another good way to avoid any misregistration. When an element is only printed in one color, it can’t show any fuzzy edges or movement.
Quality Flexographic Printing
Our presses are nearly magic, but they do have limitations. Yes, Digital Printing is exploding and fast growing at Rose City Label, but it isn’t the perfect solution for every job. For long run, repeating work, the proven traditional press technology works very well. This press is over 50′ long and the paper in the press webs up and down between stations. This means that the total length of paper between the first and last station is over 100′. If your print registration (precision alignment between colors) is even off 0.001% that will show to the careful eye. Learn more about quality flexographic printing here.
What is the penalty for not designing correctly?
The results will not be pretty if these guidelines are ignored. Luckily, this image is generated within our software to ‘simulate’ a movement of HALF a MILIMETER – this wasn’t printed on press, because we applied the proper corrections before we got to press. Part of this is handled in prepress, the graphics department within a label company that fixes things like this to make them press friendly. With out hundreds of years of combined experience, we know how to spot these problems early in the process. The job of the designer and customer is to trust us, work with us, and allow us to help you get the most beautiful label we can make for you.
Questions? Call us today. We can help.