Century Label Wins PEAK Award from PSDA

View fullsize

The Print Services & Distribution Association (PSDA) has selected Century Label as a Silver Award winner in the 2016 PEAK Awards. 

PSDA’s PEAK Awards program recognizes excellence in the print industry promoting projects that display innovation, excellent quality, and produce high return on investment. The judging panel assessed several entries to determine which ones exhibited Print Excellence and Knowledge

Held in partnership with the Print Education & Research Foundation (PERF), the PEAK Awards recognize industry firms that innovate and help customers grow. Since 1995, the program has awarded teams that make bold decisions, connect with customers in new ways, and deliver benefits to end users.

Century Label won this prestigious industry award for its shrink sleeve created for Hoosier Brewing’s Red Flyer Ale. The sleeve featured tight registration detail despite a multitude of raster elements and maintained vibrant reds and yellows using 4-color process as opposed to spot PMS colors.

This is Century Label’s second PEAK Award in as many years. In 2015, its shrink sleeve for Tin Man Brewing Company’s Herald Imperial Pumpkin Ale won 1st Place under the category “Best Digital Solution for Customer”. This year’s awards eliminated category distinctions for entries. 

“Having our work recognized by the Print Services & Distribution Association is an honor,” said Heidi Chambers, Executive Director of Century Label. “We are proud of how our processes and adherence to G7 standards allow us to meet—and exceed—the demands of our customers. Winning this award is an affirmation of our commitment to producing excellent work.”

CMC Group's Century Label Division Receives Certification from FSC®

CMC Group, Inc./Century Label meets Forest Steward Council® (FSC) Forest Management and Chain of Custody Certification requirements for the production and distribution of labels and paper using the transfer system. We are Chain of Custody certified to sell products as FSC Mix, FSC Recycled (Certificate Code: SCS-COC-005745; Trademark License Code: FSC-C132204).

FSC is the most rigorous international standard for responsible forestry. FSC certified forests conserve biological diversity, water resources and crucial ecosystems. The FSC standard also upholds worker rights and supports economic prosperity in surrounding communities. The FSC Chain of Custody certification ensures that certified wood products are tracked from forest to final product and, if applicable, that qualified recycled materials are used, adding legitimacy to the FSC claim throughout the supply chain.

For more information, contact Century Label and ask about our FSC products. 

Century Label at Labelexpo Americas 2016

View fullsize

From left: Steve Powers, Doug Hardtmayer, Alon Bar Shany, Yoav Lotan, and Yael Barak of HP; Heidi Chambers, Anthony Diaz, Seth Hill, and Craig Dixon of Century Label.

The Century Label team visited the HP booth at Labelexpo Americas 2016 and took a moment to pose with the HP Graphic Arts team in front of the new HP Indigo 8000 digital press. This summer, Century Label served as the lone North American beta testing site for the new press.

Executive Director Heidi Chambers (center right) gave a presentation at the show, during which she discussed digital printing and Century Label's success with the HP Indigo 8000. 

In a recent interview, Chambers commented that “as the market becomes educated on digital printing possibilities, more brand owners are demanding it. A major motivating factor in our decision to add the HP Indigo 8000 digital press was its doubled speed; since installing the press in July, we have increased our digital capability to handle longer runs by 125 percent. This enables us to successfully implement our digital strategy in a space that has been traditionally filled by flexographic print.”

Quote originally published on What They Think and Printing Impressions. 

CMC Group’s Century Label Division Achieves GMP Certification

After creating quality labeling solutions for food and beverage manufacturers for more than 35 years, Century Label has taken its commitment to safety to the next level.

CMC Group, Inc./Century Label is now GMP certified (Certificate No. 10532) as a manufacturer of printed labels and shrink sleeves for the food packaging industry. According to the Institute of Food Research, GMP—or Good Manufacturing Practice—is “a system to ensure that products meet food safety, quality and legal requirements.”

GMP Audit Completed by EAGLE Food Registrations Inc.

With the certification, Century Label is increasingly more effective at responding to changing regulations and customer requirements within the consumables industry. Century Label is now pursuing an SQF (Safe Quality Food) Level 3 certification with an intent to be audited for compliance in July of 2017. SQF Level 3 is a GFSI (Global Food Safety Initiative) approved scheme with a quality control component built in.

Century Label to Sponsor Sun King Brewing's CANvitational

View fullsize

Century Label produced the label for The Eighteenth Sun, the CANvitational-exclusive brew from Sun King and 18th Street Brewery.

Long considered a method of packaging for inferior beers, the practice of canning beer has seen a rise in popularity over the past few years. Sun King Brewing would like more people to be aware of why that is.

Century Label is a proud sponsor of Sun King's CANvitational, a festival that focuses on beer canning and over 65 craft breweries that have taken to the process. Now in its fourth year, the CANvitational will take place in Indianapolis on Saturday, September 10th.  

"We all really truly believe that the can is the best vessel to put craft beer in" says Clay Robinson, Co-Founder of Sun King.

The advantages of canning are becoming more widely apparent. The portability of cans (many outdoor facilities do not allow glass containers), the sustainability of aluminum as compared to glass, and the can's resistance to the two factors that can imperil the quality of beer—UV light and oxygen—are all contributing factors.

In the past, Sun King has partnered with Century Label to create several shrink sleeve labels for Sun King's beers. Two of those beers include Tip Off Ale—which was featured at all Indiana Pacers home games throughout the 2015-16 season—and The Eighteenth Sun, an imperial wheat IPA brewed in conjunction with 18th Street Brewing in celebration of this year's CANvitational.

Interested in attending the CANvitational? Click here for tickets to the event.

Shrink Sleeves: Unique Labeling for Unique Packaging

Shrink sleeves on PETG material boast layflat sizes of 30mm to 154mm, which can accommodate a variety of container sizes and shapes.

What are you doing to make your product stand out?

Consumers today are inundated with choices and shelves are crowded with product options. One of the key challenges brand owners face is setting their product apart from the crowd and many are doing so by creating packaging that is not only aesthetically pleasing, but also unorthodox and unusual.

According to creative agency Accurate Creative, "innovative shaped containers solve problems and appeal to the consumer that’s looking for something a little different. It’s the x-factor that can make a product leap off the shelf."

Therein lies another challenge, however: unconventionally-shaped packaging does not lend itself well to traditional pressure sensitive labeling.

Shrink sleeves present a more versatile option. Printed on a flexible, durable film that reduces (or "shrinks") in size when heat is applied, shrink sleeves conform tightly to the shape of the packaging, creating an attractive labeling solution. They are a perfect fit—literally—for uniquely designed containers.

While shrink sleeves can be created with a variety of substrates, the most popular is PETG—which features an extremely high shrink rate (up to 78%) and very low vertical shrink. Along with the use of distortion to allow text and images to appear correctly and proportionately after shrinking, this provides for a more accurate finished product. As a result, PETG sleeves can be altered to accommodate almost any shape of package.

Additionally, layflat sizes available in the PETG substrate span from 30mm to 154mm, giving the sleeves the ability to fit a wide range of different sized packages.

Do you rely on atypical packaging to set your products apart, and if so, could shrink sleeves be the labeling solution you’ve been looking for?

Century Label Becomes the First US Converter to Add the HP Indigo 8000 Digital Press

HP Inc. has announced what the company says is "tremendous market acceptance" of the HP Indigo 8000 Digital Press, with multiple customers selecting the technology to boost productivity and efficiently manage long, demanding label jobs. Due to high demand, HP says it is bolstering manufacturing capacity to fulfill the customer order pipeline.

The HP Indigo 8000 Digital Press offers high-volume converters and in-plant label producers end-to-end labels production at doubled speeds up to 80 meters per minute or 262 feet per minute. Early HP Indigo 8000 Digital Press adopters include:

• Century Label – a US-based company with more than 30 years of award-winning customized printing.

• Industria Grafica Eurostampa S.p.A. – a family-owned business in operation for 50 years, producing 50 million top-quality labels daily.

• Harkwell Labels Ltd. – a U.K.-based company, providing custom printed and self-adhesive digital labels and stickers.

• MegaFlex A/S – a Denmark-based staffing company, with an in-plant label production operation.

• RAKO-Etiketten GmbH & Co. – one of the largest and most modern manufacturers of adhesive labels and flexible packaging materials.

• StrongPoint – a Sweden-based converter, delivering labels solutions to a wide variety of verticals and industries, including food and beverage, wholesale, retail trade, transporting and storage and security activities.

“To stay competitive and respond to market challenges, high-volume label converters need the right combination of speed, print quality and production flexibility,” said Alon Bar-Shany, general manager, Indigo division, HP. “With the HP Indigo 8000 Digital Press, our customers are able to leverage proven HP Indigo print quality, doubled speed and sophisticated automation to meet strict brand standards, optimize supply chains and produce mass customization for sales-boosting campaigns.”

Press release from HP.

Article published on: HP, Label & Narrow Web, Labels & Labeling, WhatTheyThink, and Printing Impressions.

Century Label at CBC 2016

View fullsize

Century Label exhibited their award-winning labeling solutions at the 2016 Craft Brewers Conference and BrewExpo America (CBC) May 2nd-6th at the Philadelphia Convention Center. Century was making their second consecutive visit to the annual show that stands as the largest convention in North America for professional brewers.

“It was another great year at CBC” said AJ Haas, Senior Key Account Manager for Century Label. “It’s awesome to see how much this industry is thriving and evolving; each brewery has such passion for their brand and their unique stories get told in the names of their brews.”

Century Label Uses HP Indigo Technology to Customize Seasonal Shrink Sleeves for Sun King Brewery’s Tip-Off Ale

Enabled by HP Indigo digital printing technology, Century Label is helping microbreweries produce unique seasonal shrink sleeves that stand out on store shelves. Using three HP Indigo WS6800 Digital Presses and HP SmartStream Mosaic technology, the company is able to produce the vast majority of labels and packaging jobs with customization and proven quality embraced by the world’s leading brands. 

Most recently, Century Label partnered with Sun King Brewery to produce customized shrink sleeves for its Tip-Off Ale, a seasonal craft beer which debuted at the Indiana Pacers’ home opener. Featuring commemorative blue-and-gold basketball-themed graphics, a basketball court cut in the shape of Indiana as well as the Sun King Brewery logo, the label was designed as a tribute to the Pacers and Sun King Brewery’s community’s love of basketball. HP SmartStream Mosaic enabled each individual can to feature a different background design. 

“We have a focus on creating seasonal and unique specialty beers, and part of our legacy is developing creative labels that demand attention,” said Elizabeth Belange, marketing and promotions director, Sun King Brewery. “Our relationship with Century Label and the quality they deliver [with HP Indigo digital printing technology] has enabled us to highlight our partnership with the Pacers and celebrate Hoosiers’ love of basketball.”

Using HP Indigo WS6800 Digital Presses, Century Label produces full-color personalized labels without plates, significantly reducing the cost of short-run printing for seasonal labels and packaging needed by microbreweries. Century Label can also produce the exact quantities needed, when they are needed, helping Sun King Brewery and other microbreweries avoid inventory costs.

“We have a solid infrastructure of equipment and people to keep growing in our core products and services, including shrink sleeves, while expanding into new markets, such as flexible packaging,” said Heidi Chambers, director, Century Label. “With our HP Indigo WS6800 Digital Presses, we are perfectly poised to grow our business and offer exciting new programs, such as Speedy Sleeve, which will provide full-color shrink sleeves to customers within three days.”

Press release from HP.

Article published on: Labels & Labeling, MyInforms.com, Printing Impressions, PrintingNews.com, PrintPlanet.com, Package Printing, TLMI, WhatTheyThink.com, and Flexible Packaging.

Century Label Has Become a G7 Master Qualified Facility

Century Label, a CMC Group company, announced today that its digital and HD flexo printing methods, which are used primarily in printing custom product packaging, have been calibrated to meet G7® standards. Century Label becomes one of only 16 facilities in the United States that is currently G7 qualified for flexographic printing, validating their capabilities to the highest level of global industry standards and specifications.

G7 is a simple methodology that focuses on balancing the grays or the neutral portion of the gamut so that different printing systems and technologies print with the same visual appearance. The goal is to ensure a more consistent visual agreement of color between devices, even if they do not necessarily share the same core ink color values or substrate.

Though it requires a few additional steps to calibrate a system, the G7 methodology actually eliminates unnecessary delays during the process by reducing waste and expediting setup times, leading to an overall improvement in both efficiency and accuracy.

Now considered a G7 Master Printer, this qualification signifies Century's ability to more consistently achieve neutral grayscale appearance. It also reinforces Century’s ability to provide a consistency and repeatability with their label printing that allows them to fully maintain the integrity of brand identification that their customers desire.

Securing the Qualification

The G7 qualification is overseen by Idealliance, a not-for-profit industry group dedicated to guiding print production best practices, specifications, and standards, worldwide.Century Label has since become a member of Idealliance.

Per Idealliance’s requirements, Century consulted with Catherine Haynes, a Certified G7 Expert from All Printing Resources, in order to bring themselves in line with G7 standards. After pre-assessing their digital and flexo presses, Ms. Haynes discovered that Century had a good head start on the flexo process: “It turned out that our initial calibration was very close” says Rob Banister, Color Manager at Century Label. Mr. Banister then worked with Ms. Haynes to make minor adjustments to Century’s flexo plate curves and SpotOn!™ Flexo color management software settings to ensure repeatability and process control throughout the workflow.

"We applaud Century Label for utilizing the G7 Master Program to assure consistency and quality in their proofing, brand color management and print processes," commented Steve Bonoff for Idealliance. "G7 Master Qualification demonstrates a level of control and expertise that places Century at the top of their field. We applaud their leadership, commitment and support of the G7 Master Qualification Program."

The G7 qualification is in place for one year; thereafter, the facility will need to re-qualify on an annual basis

Hella Cocktail Co. & Century Label

View fullsize

Jomaree Pinkard, co-founder of the Hella Cocktail Co., displays one of the company's new products at the Winter Fancy Food Show.

“Some guys like to get together on the weekends and watch football. We liked to cook.”

That’s how Tobin Ludwig, co-founder of the Hella Cocktail Co., explains how he, along with friends Eddie Simeon and Jomaree Pinkard, found their way into the business of bitters. For the uninitiated, bitters is an often-overlooked ingredient mainly used as a way to enhance the flavor of various cocktails. It can also be used in a number of food recipes.

During those weekends spent in the kitchen, Tobin, Eddie and Jomaree began making their own bitters—and quickly realized they were pretty good at it. Through a highly successful Kickstarter campaign, the three were able to fund a large batch of their product, which they took to various bars, restaurants and specialty shops around Brooklyn.

“Places started purchasing them on the spot” Tobin beams.

In 2011, Hella Cocktail Co. was born. Along with a quality product, the company focused their marketing efforts on a premise of accessibility and transparency. While other bitters companies were selling to high-end bars, restaurants and chefs, the guys at Hella saw a more far-reaching market: all those folks at home who dabble in the culinary arts or mix the occasional cocktail.

Taking that vision a step further, the team sought to increase the accessibility of not only their product, but also the tools to create their product.

“Making bitters is easy” says Tobin, “anyone can do it and we wanted to give people the ability to do so”. In that vein, Hella began selling kits that allowed the user to make their own bitters. This offering has been tremendously successful for the company.

A Hella Solution

Hella Cocktail Co. has continued to grow ever since. As with any new venture, though, new challenges followed—including finding a labeling solution for all of those bottles of bitters.

“As soon as we commercialized in 2012, we underwent a rebranding and needed labels”, Tobin recalls.

At the Fancy Food show that year, Tobin discovered Century Label. Not long after, he had his first conversation with Susan Ramos, Key Account Manager. “It was a very positive conversation” says Tobin, “I really got a sense of a desire to problem solve and satisfy our needs”.

That conversation would become the impetus for a long lasting and mutually beneficial relationship that, according to Tobin, has flourished over the years.

“We've got a really good workflow with Century” he says, adding “the product is great and the pricing is competitive."

That workflow came in handy for the Hella Cocktail Co. in January 2016. Already a presence back east, and riding a wave of exposure as the focus of a national ad campaign for American Express, the Hella team was preparing to make an impact on the West Coast. The company planned to use the Winter Fancy Food show in San Francisco as its launch pad for their new line of cocktail mixers; however, in preparing for the show, the team found themselves in a tight situation.

“We had a last-minute label redesign” recounts Tobin, “and proofs needed to be in California the day before the show so they could be cut and applied.”

A daunting task, for sure. But when the team reached out to the Ohio-based Century Label, even with the short time frame and cross-country delivery, Century was able to fill the order and have it delivered on time.

“We were able to demo the product with no problem” says Tobin. With a new look to go along with a quality product, the Hella Cocktail Co. was able to make the West Coast splash that they had anticipated. The new mixers—original, hibiscus and cola flavored—were a hit.

As they continue to grow, Hella plans to expand their offerings and increase the scope of their business. Acknowledging that the dynamic nature of the culinary world can be challenging, Tobin admits "we reach out last minute with hard asks and deadlines.”

Additionally, he adds, “it's good knowing Century has the team, infrastructure and know-how to meet demands."

Sun King Brewery Scores with Cans & Sleeve Labels

Part 3 of a 3-part series on craft beer packaging.

For those with an eye on the bottom line, sleeve-label cans are about inventory flexibility, adaptability and cost savings.

For Sun King Brewery in Indianapolis, Ind., they’re about all that and being who they want to be–with a passion.

Co-owner Clay Robinson says the adaptability of sleeve-label packaging allows their craft brewery to work with smaller production runs, make more innovative use of graphics and packaging, and allow the company’s artists to “play a little more” at making distinctive labeling that attracts the customer’s eye.

Besides making it easier to create a distinctive Sun King presence on store shelves, it also allowed the brewery to partner with the hometown basketball team, the Indiana Pacers, to create a limited-run brand called “Tip-Off Ale” with which to mark the start of the 2015 NBA basketball season. The German-style “Altbier” debuted on tap and in cans at the Pacers’ first home game of the 2015 season and was available until supplies ran out at all events at the Fieldhouse in which the Pacers play, according to BrewBound.com.

Working with Century Label, Sun King was able to quickly develop and roll out a “new product that was completely unique,” according to co-owner Clay Robinson. As a result, the start of the basketball season had a unique craft brew to go with it.

The Pacers partnership isn’t the only way Sun King uses its labels to stay unique, though. According to Robinson, the company’s artists and designers work across many genres of art to create brand labels unique to each Sun King brand while maintaining the overall Sun King identity, so that when the consumer “sees something that is Sun King, it immediately (stands) out.”

Meanwhile, the flexibility afforded by sleeve-labeling allows the brewery to quickly experiment with new ideas in brewing and, just as importantly, utilize the shape, shine and shelf appeal of the prime label to draw the consumer to those brands.

As co-owner Dave Colt says, that lets the brewery “be whoever we wanted to be, produce what we want to produce–passionately.”

Read Part 1 & Part 2.

Craft Brewers, Wear Your Beer on Your Sleeve!

Part 2 of a 3-part series on craft beer packaging.

Craft beer makers: are you trying to juggle the business realities of small production runs with the need for big inventories? The answer is not magic, but it might be up your sleeve.

If you’re a giant brewery, filling and selling millions of units, it’s not a problem. You’re sending out cans of your product by the trainload, and the people who make pre-printed cans are set up to fill that need. So if you want to order a batch of cans for your product, there’s almost always a minimum order size--say, a semitrailer load of about 150,000 cans—and you can easily meet that minimum.

But you’re not a giant. You are a craft brewer, serving your local area and your coterie of diehard customers and fans who either buy your brew locally or order it online. Your production runs are small in any event, and smaller still if you have, say, a limited run of a special holiday brand. What, then, do you do with all those cans labeled for one of your products? You pay to store and protect them from damage until you fill them.

Or you can do what Great River Brewery, a craft brewer in Davenport, Iowa, did. As detailed in Packaging Digest Magazine, brewery manager and co-owner Paul Krutzfeldt says Great River was the first craft brewer to sleeve-label its cans.

Labels for 5,000 cans arrive in a box about the size of one used to ship “a pair of cowboy boots”, Krutzfeldt told the magazine. Though there are still cans to store, they can be labeled as needed on an automatic label-wrapping line for whatever size of production run the brewer needs, allowing much more flexible use of inventory and storage space. That would allow you to quickly switch labels for a limited, small production run, or even to do contract filling and labeling for a customer with little interference with your own production needs.

We see shrink-wrap sleeve labels on everything from soda bottles to jars to tubs, but hardly ever on beer cans. In many ways, though, sleeve labeling can wrap up many of your inventory and production tangles.

Read Part 1 & Part 3.

A Canned Response: Aluminum Vs. Glass in the Craft Brew World

Part 1 of a 3-part series on craft beer packaging.

Bottles or cans? That’s the battle that brews among craft beer makers and fans over the best way to package and store their beverage of choice.

For some, there’s just no substitute for the long-necked glass bottle with the crimped-on cap–sorry, crown (its sacrilege to say otherwise). An aluminum can, they say, imparts a metallic taste to the beer that destroys the brewer’s artisanship.

Not so, say the can fans. For one thing, the water-based coating sprayed on the inside of an aluminum can protects the beer from the can–and also the can from the beer. Proof lies in the fact that the beer doesn’t eat through the thin aluminum from the inside.

Other advantages of the can over the bottle? Ease and lower cost of filling, packing, storing and shipping, resulting in savings at the consumer end, say the aluminum aficionados.

Perception, however, can be everything, and there are those serious malt mavens who insist they can tell with their tongues whether their brew has been bottled or canned.

Jeff Wharton at DrinkCraftBeer.com decided to put that to the test recently–specifically, the blind taste test. He had a person pour bottled and canned samples of four brands of craft beer into glasses while he wasn’t looking, and tried to tell by taste, looks and smell which was bottled and which was canned. He was correct twice, wrong once and couldn’t even tell once.

The few consistencies Wharton noticed was that the canned samples tended to have a “cleaner” taste and, once poured into the glass, a bigger head of foam–which he figured might have been caused by the beer bubbling out of the pop-top hole in the can. There was also some speculation among commenters that light shining through the bottle glass might have affected the taste of the beer in the bottles.

Other than that, though, Wharton said he could detect no real difference, good or bad, between bottled and canned beers

Add to that the advantages in filling, packing, storing and shipping, and you—the craft brewer thinking about ways to better put your product before the public—might well consider the can.

Read Part 2 & Part 3.

Up to Bat: Your Role in Making Every Run a Home Run

Part 3 of a 3-part series on color management.

In our most recent post, we talked about how Century Label’s equipment, software and printing expertise combine to give us precise quality control over your label and shrink sleeve jobs.

A great outcome for your next print job is directly related to specifying precisely what you want at the start of the ordering process. What do we mean exactly? Here are some of the things you can do to make sure we understand your printing expectations:

• If you’re looking to have existing printed material duplicated, it’s a good idea to provide a sample when you make the order. This is especially helpful if you worked with another printer previously.

• When providing digital art files, they should be in one of these formats: .ai (Adobe Illustrator), .eps (Encapsulated Post Script), .tiff (Tagged Image File Format), .psd (Photoshop Document), or print-ready .pdf (Portable Document Format).

• If your digital material contains images that have been placed in a large file, such as an Adobe InDesign document, the links to those placed images must be either included, or embedded in the file, such as in a .pdf file. (View instructions and how-to videos here.)

• Any fonts included in the document must be outlined. (View instructions and how-to videos here.)

• If you need white plating, or under-prints, to provide backing for a specific color, we have instructions and how-to videos that can view here.

• If your digital file is raster (instead of vector), the resolution should be 300 pixels per inch (ppi at 100% scaling) to get a clean, crisp reproduction in print.

All of these tips and more are covered in our Art File Check Sheet (also downloadable here) that guides you through the steps needed to help you tell us exactly what you want. Completing this check list makes sure all the information we need to fulfill your order is at hand, and helps put you in control of the printing process.

It’s all about Century Label helping you show your true colors.

Read Part 1 & Part 2.

Behind Every Great Label is Great Technology

Part 2 of a 3-part series on color management.

As we mentioned in an earlier post, Century Label has made a significant effort to continuously advance our color management protocols and update production equipment to make sure the colors of your print job reproduce exactly the way you want and need them.

That commitment has led to updating everything from the lighting in the rooms where we examine color, to the press we use to print proofs for you to examine, to the color sample books we keep at our desks.

The quality of the viewing light has a big impact on color appearance. In designated areas, including all press rooms, the ink mixing station, and in certain offices, D50 color correction lighting has been installed, where pre-press technicians, equipment operators and customers alike can more accurately evaluate the continuity of color. D50 lighting is accepted as THE Graphics Standard when it comes to lighting - helping us do away with any “invisible” influence on the way color is perceived by the naked eye under varying viewing conditions.

We’ve also added SpotOn! Color - press-side software that enables more precise spot color control on our flexographic presses. HD Flexo is the more advanced printing process that utilizes improved, digital flexographic plates to print at a higher quality and resolution than standard flexo plates. This advanced software, for example, enables press operators to get optimum color reproduction from run to run.

What’s on the horizon? We are currently working on creating special profiling for our HD Flexo printing process that will allow us to use one of our digital presses for enhanced color proofing. This proofing method will help customers avoid the high cost of spec runs, and at the same time, provide a proof on a given job’s deliverable substrate.

Again, all this so that Century Label can help you show your true colors.

Read Part 1 & Part 3.

Show Your (Brand’s) True Colors

Part 1 of a 3-part series on color management.

Brand consistency is critical; you know that.

Your brand identifies your business to your customers and clients, to competitors, to the public at large. Your brand stands for everything you do to make your business stand out.

Color management has a lot to do with brand consistency. Even if your company doesn’t have “official colors” for your brand -- and chances are you do, with specified hues expressed in numbers matched to a particular shade in a color sample book -- people can often tell one brand from another by color alone, even before they see a distinctive logo. Think Home Depot. Think UPS.

So it’s important to get those colors right, especially across all forms of print collateral -- business cards, brochures, billboards, product labels -- by which most people encounter your brand.

It’s not enough to see the colors on your desktop computer and say, “That looks right. That’s what I want.” Different computer monitors display the same color different ways, and they’re all different from what appears on paper, just because of the difference between colors made of lit-up pixels and colors made of mixed inks.

Even your own eyes might fool you, because your brain interprets the information provided by your eyes and compares it with your experience of what things “should” look like.

Those of us who remember taking photos with film cameras and getting photos back from the drugstore might remember how photos that were taken under fluorescent light looked green, when we clearly don’t remember the actual scene looking that way. (Forgetting to select the proper “white balance” on your digital camera can give you the same results.)

A printing professional, whether she uses a computer screen or a grand digital or HD flexo press, controls color not just by looking at the image and matching by eye, but by analyzing the components of the color, reducing them to numbers and using those numbers to command a press to duplicate that color exactly.

Also, the printing professional will have charts and other tools that help her keep track of what colors are possible to depict in different media, from the point its on screen to in print.

The printing professional will have specialized graphics computers with monitors that have been calibrated to display colors faithfully and matched to an objective standard.

The laptop or tablet on which you view your company’s web site, your financial spreadsheets, and your company e-mail likely doesn’t have that.

The printing professional may be working with specialized software that communicates with press equipment and enables her to more accurately reproduce defined color.

The printing professional may even be working in a room lit by special lights designed to make colors appear as they truly are – allowing for continuity in color evaluation.

What does that all mean for you, the brand owner? 

• It means you get printed material that accurately and faithfully represents your brand.

• It means your unique identity is kept unique.

• It means you’re showing your true colors.

Read Part 2 & Part 3.

Century Label: Digital Printing of Shrink Sleeves Makes Products Pop -- and drives 70% YOY growth for the company

WhatTheyThink's Eric Vessels talks with Heidi Chambers, Director of Sales at Century Label, about opportunities in digitally printed shrink sleeves with 70% year-over-year growth. With 360 degrees of graphics, shrink sleeves deliver labeling that make products pop, and extended gamut printing on HP Indigo WS6000 and 6600 presses ensure excellent quality for the company and its customers.

Article as published on WhatTheyThink on June 2, 2015.

HP + Dscoop - Driving digital print innovation

Heidi Chambers, Director of Sales at Century Label, talks about how the Dscoop community listens to the digital print industry to identify upcoming trends and respond to them.

Century Label Makes a Splash with Dissolvable Stickers & the HP Indigo WS6600 Digital Press

View fullsize

Based in Bowling Green, Ohio, Century Label provides high quality label and shrink sleeves for manufacturers and distributors of nutraceuticals, foods and chemicals. Replacing its HP Indigo WS4500 Digital Presses, Century Label installed two HP Indigo WS6000 series Digital Presses, increasing print capacity and quality as well as expanding the range of jobs and customers it can serve. When the company was contacted by a leading maker of greeting cards with a project featuring well-known cartoon characters, Century Label turned to the advanced color-matching capabilities of its new HP Indigo WS6600 Digital Press.

Charged with printing 12,000 water soluble stickers of 26 different character designs, Century Label developed dissolvable stickers using its SmartSolve label stock. However, color-matching the licensed artwork colors of the beloved children's characters presented another challenge entirely - and an opportunity for the company to show off its new color-matching technology.

Using the HP Indigo WS6600 Digital Press's extended gamut, particularly the violet ink, Century Label hit even the most difficult colors spot on. Additionally, the wider web of the HP Indigo WS6600 allowed for more stickers per frame, enabling the company to produce the project faster and with less waste.

"Digital printing has been a high-growth area for us. We love what digital has done for our business," said Seth Hill, director of manufacturing and distribution, Century Label. "In general, our focus has changed and we are going after larger jobs now. This speaks a lot to our enhanced color management capabilities with the HP Indigo WS6600 and WS6000. We have put a lot of effort into driving our color management and that is giving us business growth."

Since installing the two HP Indigo WS6000 series Digital Presses, Century Label's business has continued to grow and flourish, doubling its digital output and printing larger run lengths not possible with previous devices.

Article as published on WhatTheyThink on September 3, 2014.

View fullsize