PackagingNews

Time to colour in the many dots | Print for Packaging – colour management

Presenting a consistently-coloured and pristine in-store image irrespective of location is part and parcel of a brand’s DNA. But successfully managing colour conformity across geographical markets and on a range of different materials is no mean feat, reports Des King

Any colour as long as it’s black is no longer the pragmatic constraint on choice that Henry Ford originally intended. Indeed any number and manner of variables, from the additives in a particular stock of paper to the humidity in the press room when the job is being printed, can turn that apparently limited option into a kaleidoscope of Delta-E shades of difference. But then, what price the pursuit of excellence if it’s no more challenging than a stroll in the park?

Brand owners don’t just insist upon accurately replicated imagery for its own corporate sake, but because the instant recognition it affords and the reassurance that it’s the genuine article makes commercial sense within the context of a 10-second purchasing decision window during the weekly trip to the supermarket. “Our brains are designed to respond to colour, and brands are carefully constructed to tap into this in-built conscious and subconscious language,” says GMG Color UK marketing executive Barry Singleton.

Signifier of the brand

Consistency is a key component of great branding, agrees Elmwood Design creative services director Mark O’Donnell. “In the retail environment, where colour acts as a signifier of the brand, you need to stand out on shelf among the competition and tap into that subconscious mind of the consumer.”
He adds: “A lack of colour consistency across a range of products may cause the consumer to question the quality of the contents. Getting this wrong is like mis-spelling your own name.”

Having set out its stall colour-wise, the challenge facing any brand is to ensure constant reiteration in an increasingly crowded and fragmented marketplace; an outcome whose success is largely dependent upon the co-operation of its immediate supply chain partners.

“Different materials, printers, print processes, even ink manufacturers all play a part in the challenges we face when managing colour consistency in branding,” notes O’Donnell.  “The best response is to investigate colour, print and production as part of the design brief.”

Elmwood is one of a growing number of creative studios to have put its money where its mouth is by investing in an appropriate colour proofing technology that will enable it to run the same colour profiles as those of its print and production partners. Systems on the market include Esko’s Color Engine software suite; GMG’s ColorProof; and Alwan’s Remote Director, distributed in the UK by Colour Engine.

Getting the colour right at the start of the process will bring a beneficial influence to bear at the point of delivery. But while printers are largely required to meet pre-ordained criteria, a pro-active interest in helping to establish the most accurate colour formulation as possible significantly reduces the margin for error in hitting targets.

Prior to the commencement of any job it undertakes, Amberley Adhesive Labels establishes a single master standard that’s often below Delta-E 1, says technical director Richard Geller. “However good the software and the colour calibration technology is, everyday events, such as worn or even replacement doctor blades and aniloxes; the slightest taint on the spatula in adding as little as 1gm of orange to a 10kg batch of otherwise red ink, can knock colour out of true. Some printers proof additional light and dark variations within agreed tolerance parameters of the master to allow for this, but we consider that to be creating different colours altogether.”

Geller adds: “We produce a hard copy proof on the right substrate, on the right press and using the right inks and the mix, and which is signed off in a light-box under the correct conditions. We do the same whether it’s digital or flexo.”

It’s expensive, but for a raft of high-profile cosmetics and personal care brand owners, such as Estée Lauder, it’s worth setting the bar higher than the norm, says Geller. “If the job’s not right then they reject it – and as to reprint it would be even more expensive, it’s best to get it right first time and then to maintain that standard over the years.

“That master colour standard comes out every time we print that job,” says Geller. “We also have an X-Rite spectrophotometer that gives a breakdown of any adjustment we may need to make. The rest is down to skill-set and experience; generally that’s enough.”

With FMCG manufacturers more concerned about controlling the quality of their products than their packaging and with printers demonstrating variable colour management capability, the pre-press house can often be the de facto brand guardian, explains Sun Branding Systems (SBS) business unit director Sue Thompson.

“Agencies like SBS act as a communications hub between the design team, the brand owner and the various different printers used to roll out the product,” she says. “We collect all the data on the particular substrate; we profile each individual press; we work with ink manufacturers to analyse the interaction between the colours and the different substrates down to the best and lowest common denominator.

“Say you’re printing Pantone 485, a warm red, on a virgin stock and then onto a PET. It’s going to look completely different; not just substrate to substrate, but press to press as well. Factor that up on a job that’s going global and this is essential ground-work.”

It’s also ongoing: specifications change, printers are replaced. Negotiating the progression of a pack design between a procurement imperative to drive out cost and time, and a marketing strategy designed to raise quality and add value is a management exercise in its own right.

Steering that course in the open and so adding greater cohesion within the supply chain during a project’s evolvement is the core objective of the current trend for cloud-based colour management systems.

Colour in the cloud

“The cloud is really quite exciting because it links all the different players within the process together by providing them with the same spectral data,” says  Thompson. Along with Esko, X-Rite and Chesapeake, SBS was part of the original start-up team behind the launch of the PantoneLive system last year.
It also ensures that the intellectual property of any design strategy resides with the brand owner. Although P&G has recently followed Heinz in signing up to the system, broad commitment has been relatively slow, says Esko’s UK regional manager Paul Bates. “Unless everyone is on board nothing will happen. The main thing it gives you is predictability; that if you print on that particular substrate with that particular ink and this is the outcome you can expect to achieve. Something like 80% of new product launches fail, so reducing that gamble is what it’s all about today.”

While other cloud-based systems are lining up to compete against PantoneLive – notably Schawk’s ColorDrive and GMG’s CoZone – some brands are taking the view that conformity can be more easily and affordably achieved by ditching the arguable freedom of the Pantone palette and getting more bangs for their buck from six-colour process instead.

The potential that can be realised through an extended gamut of CMYK plus two extra colours is an option that both EskoArtwork and Kodak are actively pushing via their Equinox and Spotless software solutions respectively.

Determining the requisite number of spots when the press is set up, generating a colour space that they’ll achieve and then converting the Pantone colours into that space may not sound as futuristic as getting ahead in the clouds, but the cost savings it delivers could be just as mind blowing.

Case study: Mondelez chewing gum

Harmonising the design approach adopted by three separately marketed branded versions of the same product in contention within the European chewing-gum category, was one of the first projects undertaken following Kraft’s acquisition of Cadbury and the group’s subsequent rebranding as Mondelez.

‘Project Picasso’ established new design parameters for Trident, Stimorol and Hollywood chewing gum across nine different countries and has been ongoing for the past two years. The design was created by LPK, and the pre-press and colour management of it, with implementation by 26 different printers via an extensive range of different substrates, was undertaken by Sun Branding Systems.

Co-ordinating the programme from the outset has been by Mondelez Europe’s design technology project manager Penny Thomas. “While it’s helped that SBS already had profiles for many of the presses, there’s been a raft of different processes and applications to manage. Special colours too have been a challenge, particularly so for Stimorol with four spots for its gold level packaging.”

With her initial training in Cadbury’s in-house design studio, Thomas’s well-qualified contribution to the project might be the envy of other brand owners. She’s also exercised a commendably thorough responsibility for the accuracy of each application (across 700 SKUs) in each country. “We do have an online approval system, but that’s digital and I’m a firm believer in not signing off without having a hard copy proof in my hands – and frankly I don’t see that changing in the immediate future.

“I think it’s necessary; not least in managing the marketing team’s expectations. You can’t really trust what you see on-screen nor by printing out a laser copy; you have to have an accurate print-ready proof which has had repro and print specifications applied.”