Made You Look
- Published: November 01, 2002, By Claudia Hine, Senior Editor
Tag and label manufacturers pull out all the stops and produce eye-popping graphics that provide plenty of shelf appeal for consumers. TLMI rewards their efforts.
While its end use on a deodorant container may not be all that flashy, the Gillette Series Clear Gel label made a big impression on the judges of the 2002 awards competition sponsored by the Tag and Label Manufacturers Institute. Competing in the Multi-Process — Line & Screen/Tone — Prime category, this entry from Dow Industries, Wilmington, MA, wins first place and best of show honors.
Presenting every challenge a converter can imagine, the nine-color-plus-varnish label contains multiple gradients interacting into each other and dropping off to 0%, requiring very tight registration on press. Suppliers include FLEXcon, Sericol, RotoMetrics, DuPont Cyrel, Gallus, and Arsoma.
BEST OF SHOW
Gillette Series Clear Gel label from Dow Industries is printed UV flexo and rotary screen at a running speed of 180 fpm.
TLMI presented the awards during its annual meeting held October 20-23 at the Hyatt Regency Lake Las Vegas Resort, Henderson, NV. A total of 94 awards were given, including 38 first place, 20 second place, and 36 honorable mentions. Here are details on a few of the winners.
The Color Challenge
Impressive Labels, Safford, AZ, wins three first place awards, including one for the Lightning Audio promotional window decal.
This four-color label is a double reader window decal printed mirror image, laminated with a polypropylene barrier stock, then surface printed, laminated, and die-cut. Color consistency and maintaining registration are extremely difficult, the converter reports; the front has to match the back, and the only way to ensure this is to peel back the labels at intervals. Suppliers include Fasson, Joales-Angston, and Shiki.
Entered in the Offset — Line & Screen/Tone — Nonprime category, Impressive Labels' Lightning Audio window decal is difficult to die-cut due to its converted thickness.
Extra White Enhances Image
For Spectrum Label Corp., Hayward, CA, an entry of bug stickers for Paper House earns the converter one of three first place honors out of its seven total awards.
The stickers are printed seven-color plus one-color backprint using 200-lpi screens made with DuPont CDI direct-to-plate technology. The clarity of the clear film around the beetles provides a strippable matrix without compromising the detail in the insect legs. Suppliers include Mark Andy, RotoMetrics, Praxair, Environmental Inks, Akzo Nobel, and DuPont CDI.
A first place winner in the Flexography — Color Process — Nonprime category, Spectrum Label's beetles require backup of two bumps of white on PP to give them depth and definition in the final image.
Access Control
In the International Div., Schreiner GmbH, based in Germany, earns a total of five awards, including a first place finish for an RFID ticket used for admission to the Ident.de exhibition.
The flexible transponder ticket features automatic in-line integration of a 13.56 MHz inlay made by a transponder-dispensing machine at 8,000 cycles/hr. Prior to and after integration into the cardboard plies, proper functional RFID performance (go/no go) of the inlay is checked. Control of the dispensing unit is correlated with the in-line die-cutting press, which must be kept from kiss-cutting the antennas of the tag. Suppliers include Gallus, Profi-Label, MACtac, Phillips, and KSW.
Schreiner's submission of an RFID ticket in the Tags — Industrial and/or Systems category features four-color flexo printing on top and bottom. Precise co-positioning of the printed upper and lower webs and the inlays is accomplished via register marks.
Fade Away
Carman's Candlery 18 oz Winter label earns Blake Printery, a div. of WS Packaging, San Luis Obispo, CA, its first place award.
The label is printed stochastically at approximately 14.8-18.0 micron spot size. It boasts excellent match to proof considering the very unique dot gain cutback, the company reports, as well as beautiful dot structure in highlights, which fade to 0%. There are no hard breaks or other issues commonly related with stochastic flexo. Suppliers include Water Ink Technologies, Wilson, and DuPont Cyrel.
Blake Printery reports it's virtually impossible to see dots with the naked eye on this candle label, entered in the Flexography — Color Process — Prime category . It is UV flexo printed.
Four Is More
Entered in the International Div., The Label Makers Ltd., based in the U.K., garners four first place awards, more than any other converter. In the Offset — Color Process — Prime category , the company's ASDA Country Vegetable Soup label is printed six-color offset and flexo varnish on polyethylene to produce a high quality pictorial effect. Suppliers include Nilpeter, Fishburn, Fasson, Presstek, and RotoMetrics.
ASDA Country Vegetable Soup wins a first place award for The Label Makers Ltd. The label is used to illustrate the contents of a tapered plastic container of prepared soup.
Play it Again
A wine label for Encore by Monterra brings Collotype Labels Pty. Ltd., Adelaide, South Australia, one of three first place awards among its total of eight.
To produce the Encore label, Collotype uses rotary offset UV, UV flexo coating, and rotary silk screen processes. The converter is challenged by tight registration between the screen gloss and black print. Suppliers include Avery, Sicpa, Kocher & Beck, and Nilpeter.
For the Encore wine label, Collotype tried many screen silvers until it found the correct luster for its client. Persistance pays off as the label wins first place in the Wine and Spirits — Line — Prime category.
Digital Does the Job
In the category of Plateless Printing, CL&D Digital, Delafield, WI, takes first place in the North American Div. for its Mr. Krispers entry, which is used by marketing as a sales sample. Printed four-color plus two bumps of white, then laminated to a heat seal material, it looks like a finished production label. Suppliers include Indigo, Faustel, and Rotoflex.
Taking first place in the International Div. of the same category is a Christmas Mini Hamper label by Paragon Labels, Lincs, U.K. The short-run, high quality presentation label, which features silver metallized PP and an overall UV flexo varnish, is printed and finished in-line on an Indigo Omnius digital press.
Produced on a digital press using liquid toner technology, the Christmas Mini Hamper label by Paragon Labels is used to decorate plastic/wicker dairy hampers.
CL&D Digital's Mr. Krispers entry is printed on an Indigo Omnius Webstream at 12-15 fpm.
“Raiding” a First
Germark S.A., Cornella De Llobregat, Barcolena, Spain, receives a first place award for Lara Croft promotional stickers, which feature five UV flexographic colors and UV bright varnish.
Run at a speed of 30 mpm, this label is printed all in one pass and cut unitary at the end of the process in-line. Suppliers include Avery Dennison Iberica, Sun Chemical, Omet, Gerhardt, and Nou Disseny.
Lara Croft stickers, entered in the Promotional category, International Div., bring Germark S.A. a first place award.
Judging this year's event were Steve Lee, RotoMetrics; J. Page Crouch; John D. Little, Nilpeter; Robert J. Smithson, Trinity Graphic USA; Mike Buystedt, Akzo Nobel Inks; Patrick Hague, Water Ink Technologies; Ray Mackura, Avery Dennison/Fasson; Paul Teachout, Chromas Technologies; Terry Trexler, Gallus; and Roy Webb, Mark Andy.
For a complete list of winners contact TLMI, 40 Shuman Blvd., Ste. 295, Naperville, IL 60563; 630/357-9222; tlmi.com.
