Sean Smyth, print technologist and technical editor, welcomed the audience and gave an overview of market trends and the future if digital printing.
Successful seminar sees printers, designers and brands meet to discuss breakthrough innovation in digital labels and packaging at Hilton Puckrup Hotel, in Tewkesbury.
Digital Labels & Packaging’s industry group continues to provide an important forum for printers, designers and brands to debate the merits of digital printing for packaging.
The seminar held on 14 November saw presentations from Judith Allen, head of creative operations at Jkr Design, Shaun Jones, realisation director at Pearlfisher, and Karen Graley, packaging and reprographics manager at Waitrose. All three gave some fascinating insights into how the creatives and the buyers view and use digital technology.
Waitrose is already using digital printing for some of its lines. The company is able to utilise the strengths of digital for its shorter run, high end products, such as Heston’s chocolate sauce, and Karen Graley was full of praise for the quality and the environmental credentials of digital. She said, ‘Printing our smaller volumes would be prohibitive if we were using conventional printing, but this is where digital has helped us by getting new product lines on shelf. Digital printing also helps us to drive through innovation and the quality is exceptional.’
Judith Allen spoke about how the Coca-Cola campaign has changed people’s attitude to digital print by getting everyone excited and taking an interest in how the labels were produced. She said, ‘I had colleagues who don’t normally take an interest in print talking about it and realising the possibilities it brings.’
She also presented a case study where Jkr Design enabled a microbrand to get its handcrafted cosmetics on shelf in a large department store, despite the tiny amounts and large range of different products involved. The packaging that Jkr designed was small corrugated sleeves printed digitally and looking stunning.
Shaun Jones described how his agency creates ‘desire’ for brands and how it makes customers engage with the brands and buy the products. About digital printing, he said, ‘We live in a digital world and it is all about connectedness. Digital printing has an opportunity to extend this connectedness and help create the desire for the brand. I think this is an extremely exciting opportunity.’
The delegates were also treated to the view from the printer by Keith Forster, managing director of Colorscan, who spoke about the company’s experience with its Jetrion 4900, which has been so successful that it has just purchased a second EFI machine, a Jetrion 4900M.
Stuart Kellock, managing director of Label Apeel, gave a hilarious account of the company’s experience of installing an HP Indigo. He emphasised the need for proper training of all staff from printer to sales, and also said, ‘It is very important to have a dialogue with your clients, be it designers or brands. We are breaking down some of the communication barriers, but it has been a long process and it is still ongoing.’
In the afternoon, two roundtable sessions picked up on the topics from the morning and a lively exchange took place. It was clear that the printers relished the opportunity to speak directly to the designers and brands. As Ian Lemon, managing director of Springfield Solutions, put it, ‘Your world normally scare me. Printers are from Mars and designers are from Venus.’
See the full report in the next issue of Digital Labels & Packaging.
