5 Design Tips for WOW Flexographic Printing

All printing processes—whether flexographic, rotogravure, digital, or offset—have certain parameters that have a huge impact on the success of the finished package.  When designing a package for the flexographic printing process—which is one way that Fortis Solutions Group prints packaging—there are some key points to keep in mind.

1. What are the materials that will be used for the package?

The color, opacity, and clarity of the materials will cause colors to change. A matte material will dull out colors, and paper absorbs more ink than film. Talk to us about how the materials selected may impact your design.

2. Do I have the correct dieline for the package?

You want to ensure that you are designing within a correct layout.
For example, for a bar wrap, you do not want something meant for the front side of the bar to be on the side or back once the bar is wrapped. The dieline will include the location of eyemarks, which are used on the packaging equipment. This requires communication between the designer, printer, and co-packer to ensure the finished product is as anticipated.

3. Am I building my design file correctly?

We are going to recommend the best way to print your graphics on a flexographic press that will provide a quality finished product while considering costs. We may ask you to change from spot color to a 4 color equivalent or vice versa based on our 30 years of flexographic printing experience.  Feel free to submit your preliminary designs for
feedback and recommendations for optimum print results.

4. Am I designing with common plates in mind between SKUs.

With flexographic printing, each color is placed on the substrate via a plate. If you have a spot-color logo and ensure it is the same size and placement on all SKUs, you may reduce the number of plates required. In the same vein, if you have a flavor color that changes from SKU to SKU, try to keep the graphics common so you have fewer plate changes within the run. We will be glad to suggest how you can achieve optimization within your design.

5. Do I have achievable results in mind?

It is important to understand that what is built within your
design program with unlimited possibilities then has to be transferred to the mechanical printing process. Flexographic printing has made great strides over the years in our ability to provide high-quality packaging, but without an understanding of what is doable on press, there is a chance your design will not print as you envisioned.

You will be miles ahead if you take these 5 things into account
when designing for flexography. But on that note, we don’t mind being pushed by out-of-the-box questions about what we can attain.

We love to talk about printing and packaging. Give us a call and
one of our printing specialists will be happy to discuss your project.