Date: May, 2019 | Category: Proofreading | Author: Ryan Szporer

It’s easy to imagine how much work goes into the production of packaging materials.

The Packaging Proofing Process

Even looking at the process in a vacuum, the back-and-forth alone in trying to finalize a design may spark images of heated boardroom debates on details as seemingly trivial as font size. However, before the packaging even gets to that point, it may shock you just how many steps are involved, in developing it from its infancy.

That’s not even taking into account factors like cost-effectiveness (including Return On Investment), time to market, and, perhaps most importantly, quality (accuracy). They all contribute to determining the degree of success of given packaging.

In effect, it’s a company-wide process of finalizing packaging (along with what’s inside), one that starts at the very top. Considering the financial ramifications of a mistake making its way onto the final product, it arguably stops there too, with one constant throughout the workflow being the need for thorough quality control.

Packaging Proofing in Pharma

Take a hypothetical company in the heavily regulated pharmaceutical industry, for example. Headquarters coordinates the launch of new drugs. And, while drugs themselves will likely be produced and packaged at different sites, the individual branding elements that go into the design are most probably determined at the head office. In effect, headquarters doesn’t just coordinate the supply chain, but all the different departments, including, in this case, marketing.

Input may come from the marketing units of offices around the world. It simply makes sense that they would get the chance to offer their two cents, especially with regard to packaging that will differ from one region to the next. Some of the content will nevertheless stay universal. Aside from the obvious elements (product name and branding), that content will take the form of drug and dosage information, for example.

In pharma, the Food and Drug Administration is the American regulatory body responsible, and documentation, like drug applications, has to be approved. A given firm’s Regulatory Affairs (RA) department liaises with the FDA, all the while reviewing packaging and labeling to ensure accuracy. It’s one of the first stages at which proofing becomes critical, to prevent typos and reduce back and forth. Truth be told, it’s just one of many product-development considerations with which RA helps, acting as a sort of bridge between departments.

The Reality of Conversion Errors

For example, with the approved copy (as well as technical and corporate-defined design requirements) in hand, the graphics or creative department begins to develop the file. The process is fairly intensive with a fair amount of artwork-creation checklist items for which to account, including making the file as accessible as possible to all other departments.

On that subject, even IT enters the fray, albeit indirectly. IT may not have any work to do with regard to the creation process, but the department is responsible for ensuring the homogeneity of software and platforms across the organization wherever possible.

The risk of conversion errors sneaking in at some point must be addressed. While it’s almost impossible to protect against the printer introducing them once the files get sent over, it’s relatively easy to ensure nothing of the sort occurs in-house simply by standardizing so that the files stay the same when being opened on different systems in each of the departments.

After all, to successfully determine whether the printer’s proof and subsequent shipment of packaging components match what had been approved internally, first, you have to make sure the file that had been approved internally actually appears as it should.

Approving Printed Packaging Materials

From there, it’s a matter of the internal quality control department proofing the shipment from the printer, ideally through proper sampling. The approved packaging then moves to production and gets distributed, ultimately landing in the hands of consumers. At that point, the packaging technically undergoes one final quality check.

Once the threat of expensive, required recalls or reprints dissipates, the quality objective can be safely confirmed to have been met. Assuming an efficient revision process, which can similarly be enhanced with the right digital proofing system, had been leveraged, so can the other two.

The trick is being able to sign off with confidence on the packaging before it even gets to that stage, though. It’s not so much a matter of bypassing the customer as it is of truly ensuring its quality for them and mitigating any risk ahead of time. Many different departments may be at work here, but proper proofing helps keep the operation running smoothly, limiting the number of revisions in play and ultimately the number of errors that slip through the cracks.

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Date: April, 2019 | Category: Proofreading | Author: Ryan Szporer

While counterfeiting is usually associated with money, actual consumer products can be copied too, right down to the packaging. It’s an issue about which brand companies are ever-vigilant, leading to the development of several key anti-counterfeiting measures.

The Need for Anti-Counterfeit Measures

If you’re skeptical of the threat counterfeiting poses, consider the number of fake pieces of clothing or copied versions of video games and movies to which you may have been exposed. Indeed, counterfeit products are all over the place and readily available to most. However, the seriousness of the issue really should hit home when you think about goods like drugs and electronics, the latter of which, when counterfeited, tend to fail fire-safety tests.

Counterfeiting doesn’t just have negative ramifications for the victimized companies, but the consumers themselves. In fact, as just alluded to, sometimes the ramifications to consumers are much worse.

It’s true that, in the specific case of counterfeited non-consumables, purchases are often made by customers who know full well what they’re buying, as surveys have revealed. In such instances, consumers willingly sacrifice quality for a lower price point. However, fake products like pharmaceuticals, which actually represent the biggest piece of the pie for counterfeiters overall, are generally sold with the intent of being passed off as genuine articles. All it does is prompt more of a need for the previously mentioned anti-counterfeiting measures.

Covert vs. Overt Anti-Counterfeiting Measures

Measures run the gamut from Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) tags for tracking purposes to anti-tampering technologies that similarly help to protect brand equity, just in a different way. The packaging design itself can be manufactured in such a way to make it incredibly hard for counterfeiters to replicate. For example, holograms not only add an aesthetic element but, if created using electron beam lithographic technology, can be near-impossible to copy.

Optimally, anti-counterfeiters must strike the right balance between the obvious (overt) and subtle (covert). While covert features are intended to help companies stay a few steps ahead of counterfeiters, overt features are meant to signal to consumers that the product is legitimate.

Covert features are meant to be hard to detect and copy. Overt features are hard to copy as well, though. Think along the lines of an anti-counterfeit sticker, which, when removed from the packaging, leaves visible damaging. Packaging that doesn’t have the sticker or a clearly identifiable spot where it was should be interpreted as a signal to the consumer to consider the product counterfeit as a precaution.

An Ongoing Battle Against Counterfeiters

Unfortunately, as ingenious as some of these measures seem, any advantage companies have in the ongoing high-stakes battle has to be seen as a stop-gap. Counterfeiters aren’t going to stop and in many ways, they’re winning in spite of the resistance.

In 2016, the cross-border counterfeit market was estimated as exceeding $1.7 trillion in cost, including indirect losses to governments and consumers. The compound annual growth rate from then until 2022 is meanwhile projected to be two to three times that of food, beverage, and pharmaceutical products.

In other words, there’s a lot left to lose. As proof, brand companies have already lost a lot, and not just in terms of the up-to 50% in revenue. Significant amounts of money are also spent by companies and governments, seizing fakes and developing future anti-counterfeiting strategies.

That’s why, in addition to developing effective measures that are irreproducible, cost-effectiveness is also a focal point. It may seem logical to include more anti-counterfeiting measures on the packaging that are required, following a better-safe-than-sorry mindset. Fewer is better here though, as long as the up to three recommended, visible elements are strong on their own. The proposed limit also makes it easier to inspect the packaging for potential tampering.

Furthermore, anti-counterfeiting elements need to be updated regularly. Companies would only be making their lives costlier and more complicated by needlessly overdoing it. It’s more effective to devote any excess financial resources to regularly updating the few elements you do have and making them as hard to replicate as possible than simply throwing a bunch of half-cooked eggs in the same basket at once.

Customer Communication Is Key

Similarly, when presented with the dilemma of whether to apply the same elements across all packaging and product lines or different ones, it’s actually better to go with the same ones.

Anti-counterfeiting experts Libor Šustr and Dr. Petr Hampl write in a Packaging Europe article published by Tim Sykes: “Because unit costs correlate with batch size, it is better to cover all products with the same element and make frequent changes. The advantage over potential counterfeiters is thus ensured and customer communication is easier.”

The customer communication point is key. It’s true that, if someone wants to buy a knock-off, they’ll find a way. In such an instance, it’s more of a customer loyalty issue than a counterfeiting one, where companies should be asking themselves why people want lower-quality versions of their products. It may make more sense to focus on improving your product if possible to the point that customers don’t want any cheap substitutes.

Anti-counterfeiting measures can only do so much, but they’re at their most effective when companies are working in conjunction with their customers. In the case of a counterfeit product that is designed to dupe consumers seeking authentic articles, like pharmaceuticals, you want to educate your customers to know when they’re getting what they want, i.e., your product.

It’s downright logical once you think about it, with anti-counterfeiting measures on packaging being proven to increase revenues in such an instance. Ultimately, it turns out, it is about money, specifically how to protect your investments, the most valuable of which is a company’s relationship with its customers. There’s just no substitute.

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Date: March, 2019 | Category: Proofreading | Author: Ryan Szporer

The invention of the printing press is often understated in terms of its importance, with the advent of the digital age in which we now live.

It’s true that these days, people can go entire days without reading something that’s been printed out thanks to the internet. However, not only has “digital” actually come to define an entire sub-sector within the printing industry, but, without the press, which promoted widespread literacy, who knows where we would be right now? Not to mention how it’s not just literature and collateral that gets printed out, but images and patterns on textiles that people use every day in the real world.

That digital sub-sector is also growing, and growing rapidly, with the implication being that rumors of the demise of the printing industry have been greatly overstated. And “digital” is but one method of man that printers use, with each of the below having their own unique applications. From letterpress to digital, here are the most popular printing methods today:

Letterpress Printing Method

Also known as typographic printing, letterpress dates back to Johannes Gutenburg’s 15th-century invention of the printing press. While the process, which involves hard-pressing an inked surface with elevated letters and images onto a substrate (printing surface), is one of the oldest available, it still remains prominent within the printing industry.

Two types of letterpress machines are the most common nowadays. For one, flatbed cylinder presses, on which the substrate is placed on a traditionally horizontal surface while a revolving cylinder applies pressure and makes the print, are renowned for operating slowly and topping out at 5,000 impressions per hour.

The other, the rotary press, features a master on one cylinder and a printing surface that is pulled between it and a second once the process starts. Able to make 20,000 to 30,000 impressions per hour, the rotary press is in the process of usurping the flatbed in terms of popularity.

Flexography Printing Method

Essentially an offshoot of letterpress, flexography is a form of relief printing that specializes in labels on cans and boxes. Presses run at high speeds and are typically very versatile, able to print cartons and labels on a variety of substrates on the same machine.

Plates, which form the print information and transfer the ink to the substrate, are made of rubber, making the process a relatively inexpensive one used primarily for short runs. The rubber plate wraps around a cylinder and picks up ink that will ultimately be deposited on the substrate. The flip side is that, unfortunately, the plates are very fragile and need to be replaced often.

Gravure Printing Method

Gravure printing is essentially the opposite of letterpress. The design to be printed is etched instead of elevated on a metallic master. The individual “cells” that are created contain the ink. Deeper cells result in darker tones.

Gravure tends to be more of an expensive process relative to flexography and is best suited for longer runs. Like flexography, gravure is common for packaging jobs within the packaging. Cylinders last significantly longer though. That’s one of several benefits, including consistent, high-quality results achieved with fast-drying ink that rivals the high-speed process itself.

Offset Lithography Printing Method

Offset lithography is a planographic printing process. So, whereas letterpress image areas are elevated and gravure image areas are recessed, they are on the same plane as the non-image areas for offset. Here, image and non-image areas are chemically separated.

The “offset” in the name refers to the presence of a third cylinder in the process besides the plate and impression ones. So, instead of the ink being directly applied from the master as it is with other methods, a rubber blanket serves as an intermediary between those cylinders.

Offset, which specializes in printing paper products like inserts and leaflets, is one method of choice in industries like pharma, in part because pharmaceutical collateral and packaging components call for fewer colors. For example, a typical press features multiple printing units, each devoted to a single color for one side of the printer. So, a single-color press has one unit, while a press with four units prints in cyan, magenta, yellow, and black (CMYK).

To print on both sides you can wait until the first has finished and the ink has dried before flipping the job over and restarting. You also have the option of adding a reversing cylinder to the mix and then another printing unit for each color. So, eight in total for four colors.

Therein lies the main disadvantage of offset printing: It may be fast (120,000 pages per hour), result in high-quality prints, and be ideal for long print runs. It’s expensive and incredibly technical though, generally requiring special operating expertise.

Screen Printing Method

The screen printing process, as its name would suggest, involves ink being forced through fabric (or screen) onto the image areas of the printing surface. Also known as porous printing for obvious reasons, it culminates in a squeegee pushing the ink through, while a stencil, manually cut or made electronically, prevents the non-image areas from getting colored. The process is repeated for each color on a new screen.

The benefits are such that the process can be used on a wide range of substrates, which don’t have to be flat for an effective job to be done. T-shirts are one example of a product printed using this method. Electronic circuits are another. Screen-printing equipment can be relatively inexpensive and the process itself is simple and suitable for small-scale jobs

Digital Printing Method

Two types of digital printing make up the lion’s share of the jobs in this space: Inkjet and xerography. Inkjet printers effectively spray the ink on the substrate in tiny dots that appear as solid colors from afar. Xerographic or laser printers rely on a charged internal cylinder to attract toner that gets transferred to the substrate. While you might use a laser printer for everyday office work, large-scale print shops use them as well for a variety of print jobs.

Digital printing’s lack of contact between the master and substrate makes for great versatility, enabling a wide variety of materials, both delicate and not, to be used as printing surfaces. Digital printing is great for short (and, more and more, long) runs, even allowing for variability between individual prints. Some examples include mailing addresses and, much more famously, The Coca-Cola Company’s campaign featuring personalized names on bottles. Each print can be completely unique, offering a degree of flexibility that other methods can’t.

As digital printing is more so the product and subsequent focus of technological advancement, it stands to gain more ground in the industry. In 2017, digital printing accounted for 16.2% of the global print market. While lithography still dominates (70%), digital is up from 2.9% in 2012, indicating potential for exponential growth moving forward.

Nevertheless, regardless of the technology at your disposal or your preferred printing method, digital tools that promote error-free quality control are readily available. Check for content errors during the pre-press phase and verify samples early on, in the middle, and at the very end of the actual job.

Prevent wasted resources in case of print defects and ensure the print quality stays high throughout. Contact GlobalVision for more details on how to incorporate a custom solution tailored to your specific printing situation into your workflow.

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