For brands, labels are one of the most powerful sales-winning tools in their marketing arsenal. Done well, they give instant eye-stopping power to products, conveying brand identity and standing out amid retail noise.
This is particularly true in markets such as beverages, where on-shelf competition is high. However, today’s label converters have many pressures to handle in addition to the quality of its printing output. Deadlines are getting shorter while design complexity increases, and all while carbon output and costs need to be controlled.
In a high-pressure market, at Contact Originators, we’re an experienced and cost-effective partner to label printers and converters, helping them get the most from every single press run. We take the heavy lifting out of label prepress to make consistent run-to-run excellence more achievable than ever before.
But, what is label prepress? Simply, label prepress is all about setting up the right tools and processes before the first press is even fired up. It’s a combination of knowing how to translate designs from digital to the real world, identifying the right inks to use, and knowing the optimal equipment and the processes that will bring the on-screen design to life.
At Contact Originators, we partner with our printing customers to make narrow web prepress simple. With extensive experience, we’re able to help label printers impress with every single print run. Whether producing pressure sensitive labels, adhesive labels or a range of labelling products of all shapes and sizes, we aim to make even the most complex narrow web printing tasks look easy.
So, how do we do it? Here are four central ways we help our customers with better prepress for labels, alongside service and support:
A collaborative design process:
The foundation of great label design is collaboration. We offer label artwork origination as part of our services, able to bring an expert eye whether at the concept stage, or adjustments to incumbent designs.
The advantage for our beverage label printers is that our team understands all aspects of the production process, so we know the most viable printing presses, technologies and techniques to achieve the desired result. This also means our customers always have a print-ready label design that meets aesthetic preferences and rigid brand guidelines. With the support of our team, the design-to-print workflow is made seamless, with reduced risk of errors and waste.
Colour control:
With production pressures growing, accuracy is paramount. Technical specifications must be adhered to, and brand customers have highly specific colour values to hit, no matter the substrate or printing method used.
Colour management is one of the services we offer, centring around helping our customers to select the optimal inks for achieving the required output, to minimise testing and waste. We believe that right-first-time print should be the standard, and we work with our label converting customers to make it a reality. Of course, making better use of ink supplies also has further benefits in controlling costs – a powerful benefit for our customers as margins are pressed ever tighter.
Connected technologies:
We believe in the power of a connected and fluid supply chain. As part of our range of services, we also supply high quality photopolymer plates for flexographic printing applications.
In fact, we are the first business in the European market to install three Esko CDI Crystal flexo imagers with XPS Crystal exposing units, an investment that forms part of our flexible packaging and label HD production hall.
The upshot is that by linking technologies and investing in our capabilities far beyond industry standards, we can support our customers in more ways and with relevant, proven solutions.
A focus on label industry sustainability:
The label market, as part of the wider print field, is pushing ever harder towards sustainability. Every single part of the supply chain must play its part, and that includes reprographics and prepress partners.
At Contact Originators, we have built a culture of continuous improvement in our operations, ensuring we’re not only delivering the highest quality of label prepress services, but finding new ways to reduce the environmental footprint of the industry. We know that our commitments must extend beyond words and become a real advantage that our customers can access.
Whether it’s developing new innovations that reduce the burden of waste or finding new ways to drive down carbon costs through our own workflows, we’re known for our ‘leaders never follow’ ethos. This includes within areas of sustainability and environmental awareness.
Is your label converting business looking to reach that next level of productivity and quality? It all begins with better label prepress, and at Contact Originators, we have the expertise and technology to make it simple.
Discover how our team can help to deliver outstanding results – get in touch now.
