Judith Allan, head of creative operations at Jkr Design, gives a perspective from a design point of view on the opportunities digital can offer.
As a global packaging design agency, we are very aware of the way in which the world is becoming more and more digital. Our client’s brands exist in an increasingly digital space where packaging is the only truly interruptive media: you can’t switch off or filter out packaging; it exists in your hand when you buy the product.
So digitally printed packaging is a natural step and it has been used for a long time to create mockups, quickly and competitively priced. Digital print is now building its place for short run, fast turnaround print jobs, but the big challenge is to get everyone to think differently about digital printing and see the opportunities that it can bring. Initiatives such as the ‘Share a Coke’ campaign last year put digital printing onto everyone’s agenda.
From a design agency perspective, our role is to think differently about how to use the opportunities that digital printing can bring while adding value to the brand rather than being quirky, just because we can. Here are the opportunities that we believe digital printing brings:
• Authentic packs – creating individuality within mass, which could be creating packaging design which uses the idea of localised special editions.
• Amorphous brand development – using frequent changes of pack design to keep a brand evolving and growing organically.
• Reactive – being able to respond quickly to new news, eg allowing a brand that sponsors the Winter Olympics to incorporate Olympic winners onto packs the day after they win gold.
Judith Allan
In order to capitalise on these opportunities, we need to have the right people to work with. We need brand owners who are open to the opportunities and prepared to think differently about what digital print can do for them.
Designers need to understand how to design for digital print, to use the flexibility and nimbleness of digital to be able to respond quickly but still resolve the design properly.
Finally, we need printers who will provide a service which is all about quality and delivery. It is always the case that the printer should be so much more than a person who loads the paper and presses print.
Digital technology has been talked about for a long time as a game changer, now it is moving at a pace and has captured the interest of brand owners and design agencies a like. The challenge now is how to respond to the opportunities.
