Improving on the Invisible
Decorating techniques have advanced to become nearly silent enhancements that round out packages.
By Joanna Cosgrove, Contributing EditorA stunning package creates an indelible brand image, but it's decorative embellishments that complete the look of a package. Whether they are extravagantly evident accents or more subtle "non-decorations" intended to enhance an overall design, decorating technologies have come a long way.
Although the development of new techniques may seem nonexistent, the priority has been to improve upon existing decorating methods. "While there haven't been many new breakthrough decoration technologies in the last few years, the mastery of these conventional techniques has certainly increased," says Marc-Andre Houx, senior vice president, marketing and sales, LIR, part of the Techpack Group (headquartered in New York and Paris).
Subtlety was just the attribute the house of Hermes was looking for. Known for its chic clothing and fragrances, Hermes celebrated the autumn relaunch of its signature fragrance, with the introduction of Rouge Hermes, a singular, limited edition lipstick color chosen for its special connection to Hermes fashion. The red color, synonymous to Hermes clothing since the 1930s, was used as a dye for fabric and leathers. The special celebration calls for special product packaging, so Hermes tapped Henlopen, part of the Techpack Group, to produce its lipstick case. Made of buffed and lacquered solid brass, the airtight Slim Line case is decorated using a Roll and Arbor technique that required detailed attention.
"We start with flat artwork that is transferred to a steel plate that will be formed around a round lipstick tube," says Sophie Chevalier, Henlopen's vice president of marketing and sales. "The lettering itself may not look difficult but careful calculations are required in order to master the spacing between each character in the design." Adding the letters is extremely difficult because the metal needs to be held tightly and spun at the same time, allowing the letters to be rolled onto the brass.
Decorating the brass case proved challenging because it was heavier than traditionally used aluminum and used no other accent colors, other than the natural brass color. The run also required Henlopen to double-check its brass supply to ensure that there we no color variations between products. Following the successful production of the lipstick package, Hermes also commissioned Henlopen to produce a slightly larger, airtight aluminum Slim Line package to house a complimentary fragrance stick.
Techpack's LIR group also demonstrates how to improve upon existing technologies with the on-bottle decorations it executed for Christian Dior's Vitalmine. The pearlescent white and pink bottle is decorated with delicate gold hot stamping. "We used conventional technology for decoration but have mastered the difficulty of using the hot stamp technique," says Marc-Andre Houx, senior vice president, marketing and sales, LIR. "The narrow cap and the angled slope of the shoulder added a degree of difficulty when a thin gold band was hot stamped around the rim of the cap for added allure."
LIR's Houx says package decorating has become more difficult due to current trends and heightened customer specifications. "As the packaging goes more toward luxury and clarity it is even more difficult for us because we have to attain perfection in molding. Corners have to be impeccable," he says. "Before, when packaging was more opaque, we could cut corners to hide things, but now we don't have that opportunity. The packaging has to be designed in such a way that the execution is absolutely perfect."
Beautiful Bottles
A glass bottle may originate from a meager mound of heated sand, but with careful crafting and a few artfully executed and carefully placed decorative touches, that bottle becomes a piece of art. "Our facilities both in France and the US are using most of the existing classic decorating techniques such as sandblasting, acid etching and silk screening, however one technique that is increasingly in demand for bottle decoration is color spraying," says Jean-Claude Moreau, president and CEO, Pochet. "All kinds of fancy colors can be achieved using mostly organic inks. For instance, Green Tea from Elizabeth Arden features this popular trend. The clear glass bottle is sprayed with a pale green color and then the screened with the product name, logo and so on."
Other examples are Belara from Mary Kay, a bi-color spray with over-screening, and Clinique's Happy for Men in a vivid orange color.
Organic inks are safer and more versatile than ceramic inks, says Moreau, because they are comprised of different chemical compounds. "Spraying is hot for two reasons: package designers can have the subtle look of transparent or opaque colors using organic sprays. And almost any color can be achieved without all the laws that apply to heavy metals (lead)," he says. "In the past, the only way to have a bright red was by using a ceramic ink that contained lead. Organic inks are a wonderful alternative when loud decoration or bright, aggressive, electric colors are needed for teen products."
Bottle decorating is getting more and more important. "We have seen tremendous growth in multiple process decorating, whereas in the past, customers would opt for one pass screening in order to simply put their product name on their bottle," Moreau notes. "Now there are more elaborate alternatives and customers are now capable of using more than one decorating technique on the same bottle for better, more elaborate results."
Lucky Labels
Labels tend to be a packaging component with an effect most consumers tend to take for granted. But decorative techniques on labels have progressed substantially since original paper label stock was the popular norm. "We compete with direct printing, glue applied, shrink labeling, thermiage, heat transfer and all the other methods and they are constantly evolving," says Jeff Robinson, marketing development leader, FLEXcon Co. Inc., Spencer, MA. "In our marketplace there is a fit and a home for each technology, but things continue to happen in our industry that makes pressure sensitive a desired technology."
n addition to the demand for labels with distinctive graphics and special finishes, the popularity of "no-label look" labels has taken label providers into new and exciting territories. "The no-label-look" goes back to the old decorative methods of heat transfer and direct printing which made the cross a product line to unify a design theme. "A lot of package designers want the same look of the brand throughout the line. An example is the metallized look of the products within Gillette's Cool Wave series," he says. "Because pressure film offers so many material choices, we can come up with a pressure sensitive technology that allows our printer to print the same type of graphics and achieve the same type of look on a wide variety of containers to get that uniformity on bottles and more challenging squeeze tubes and neck labels."
Clear, white and silver films with different finishes seem to be the standard today, but hot new decorative possibilities like squeezable metal, textured and glow-in-the-dark materials are things that have been around for years, but had never been thought of for a prime label application. "I often go to our different business teams asking what they are coming up with for POP, because we need to think of that on a package," Robinson says. "Holographic, squeezable metallized, fluorescent, plush print-like the inside of a jewelry box, are being strongly considered for new applications."
Where will package decorating go from here? "The market has been demanding more clarity and transparency in packaging, which gets the customer closer to the product color and nature," says LIR's Houx. "Our job is to enhance the product with a package that is beautiful and brings value to the formula, while offering truth to the customers and a respect for the beauty of the market."decoration look like it was part of the package-a technology that we've been able to replace over the years."
Pressure sensitive label advances have enabled the creation of many out-of-the-ordinary label decorations. "Ten or 15 years ago, pressure sensitive film was an absolute challenge to print on. Inks do not want to stick to plastic. They do with paper, but with paper you can't have all of the different looks that can be achieved with pressure sensitive materials," says Robinson. "The aesthetics in demand today-combination printing, different varnishes, thermal chromatic inks, tactile feels, heavy ink lay downs, opaque inks, hot stamping-have allowed printers to expand the market and make pressure sensitive more of a standard technology in the cosmetic and personal care segment because of the graphics they can achieve."
Pressure sensitive success is equally due in part to the evolution of film materials and to the increased development of the inks. "The industry is constantly being challenged to improve its technologies," says Robinson. "The press manufacturers have made printing on film easier by putting in chill rollers and in combination with the ink manufacturers that have developed inks that will adhere to different films. At the same time, we have spent years advancing topcoats on films so that they are more universally printable and more resilient in different environments. It's been a whole progression in the industry that continues to push us forward."
Robinson remarks that his customers are constantly challenging them to come up with new ways of improving their product. "Clairol''s Herbal Essence line, with its inward facing prime label, is a great example of using label technologies to get the most surface for graphics. And Softsoap used a middle layer that was inserted into the bottle with the pump," he says. "Those developments aesthetically expand what can be done to a package, and it's been great for our industry."