LFP - Large-Format-Printing
Design and production of contract-quality packaging proofs and mock-ups
Friday 03. December 2010 - Communication and design agency Schofeld, located in the German city of Bremen, was so convinced about the features of the Roland DG VersaCAMM VS-640, that they immediately ordered the machine when it came to the market. Mainly the possibility to print on various substrates with white and metallic inks was for them an important asset.
Schofeld was founded in 1996 by brothers Gil and John Schofeld. One of the company’s main fields of activity is the creation and development of designs. They work for various international brands including American Express, Deutsche Bank and coffee producer J.J. Darboven. As it gets tougher on the market, many companies, food producers in particular, relaunch their established brands. They modernize the designs to grab the customer’s attention. Despite all multi-media promotion, the packaging design keeps playing a central role for selling consumer goods. Today, the most complex designs are produced, which were technically impossible a few years ago. There is a growing trend to use luxury finishings for flexible packaging, including metalized substrates and metallic spot colours. This creates a number of challenges for design agencies and printers. John Schofeld explains: “Today, it is not enough to be creative. You need to have a comprehensive understanding of the products and the brand. Therefore it’s often easier to launch a completely new brand than give a fresh impetus to an established brand. It is also important to work within a given budget and select the most cost effective production method, without compromising the quality. Since production processes have become very complex, our customers ask us to supervise the entire production, even for products conceived by other agencies.”
Schofeld started collaborating with CGS two years ago. CGS is a well-known name in the graphics arts industry for digital proofing, colour management and production workflow applications. The CGS solutions allowed Schofeld to simplify their workflow and produce contract proofs that meet the most severe requirements. CGS introduced Schofeld to Roland DG’s VersaCAMM VS-640. Gil Schofeld: “We knew that CGS was developing a dedicated driver for Roland inkjet printers to produce halftone proofs with over- and under-printing white on flexible substrates. Although we made a lot of our standard proofs ourselves, we still needed to outsource many jobs for production on an expensive laser imaging system. That wasn’t always ideal since we often had to make numerous proofs, which cost a lot and caused unnecessary delays. Moreover, the proofs were sometimes inconsistent in colour. Gil Schofeld continues: “Just before IPEX 2010, CGS showed us some samples of the Roland VS-640. We were so excited about the possibility to print white and metallic colours on various substrates that we ordered the machine directly. The printer was delivered to us so quickly that we were one of the first users in Germany.”
The VersaCAMM VS-640 is a 1.6m wide machine that combines printing and cutting. The printer/cutter can be equipped with four, six or eight colours. The eight colour configuration, which is installed at Schofeld, consists of the standard colours (CMYK), light cyan, light magenta, white and metallic. By combining the metallic silver ink with the other colours, a range of over 500 metallic tints can be created, including gold and bronze.
Gil Schofeld: “When we began to use the printer, we had absolutely no experience. During several weeks we therefore did extensive print tests on many substrates. Already after the initial tests, we noted that the Roland with its eight colours has a very large colour gamut, which can be exactly addressed with the ORIS Color Turner // Web colour management by CGS. The gamut of the printer is large enough to reproduce the entire Pantone metallic colour library. Our customers were very impressed, even with the initial results. In order to create a proof that matches not only the colour of the original packaging, but gives a perfect overall impression, we have invested in a hot roll laminator as well. Today we are able to give clients already at the design stage a proof, which is not only colour accurate, but also has the look and feel of the original. Still, the cost per proof is only a fraction of what we had to pay before.”
John Schofeld: “The system is particularly interesting for us when packages are printed at different locations, like a new coffee packaging we made recently. These packages are gravure printed in different languages in various European locations. In the past, small colour shifts were unavoidable. Now, we are able to provide printers with accurate proofs that include white and metallic colours. These can be reproduced easily on the press.”
Schofeld doesn’t only use the VS-640 for packaging proofs. For instance, they used the machine as well for the development of new credit cards for a large European bank. They printed the design on a white film so metallic elements could be visualized precisely and provided the client with perfect samples.