Flexo printed window cling for Swedish Ballard

I just completed this window cling project for Worker Bees, a Seattle agency. I had the clings printed on a flexographic press.

Although I am an old hand at managing offset and digital print projects, this was my first flexographic printing experience.

In this article I’ll describe a few of the things I learned during the course of this project.

My flexographic adventure

A flexographic press is a type of rotary web press, so the plastic cling material for my job—backed with white paper—came on a roll.

Flexographic printing is a direct printing method, not an offset method. The black printing plate looked like a giant rubber stamp, and the image on the plate was backwards. The plate was wrapped around a cylinder about 15 inches long. The yellow background was a flood coat that didn’t require a plate.

The last cylinder in line on the press was tooled with a round-cornered die so that the clings came off the press already cut to finished size and shape. This press had a UV coating and drying unit to protect the printed image from scratching off.

These flexographic inks were not quite opaque, but the ink body was thicker and more translucent than offset inks. In order for my design’s yellow background to show up well in a window, the final color was back-printed with white ink. This meant that what I had thought was a two-color job was actually a three-color job. The UV coating was not counted as an ink in the printer’s price calculations.

The sticky side of the cling material is what’s on bottom while the job is printing, and it’s also the side the design will be viewed from. In other words, the back of the material is printed, so that you view the art through the clear plastic. This translates to an ink order of black, then yellow, then white, then UV coating.

Disaster Avoidance Tips

• If you’ve read other articles on the Printing Disasters blog, you’ll know I always recommend working closely with your printer. But when the process is one you don’t know well, this is an especially important step toward ensuring a successful outcome! The earlier you can involve the printer, the better.
• Be sure to show the printer your preliminary artwork when you request the pricing so he can alert you to any printing problems in your design. (My window cling art originally contained a blue logo with fine detail. It was too fine to trap, so  my printer recommended that a black ink version of the logo be substituted for the blue.)
• Pre-thinking the order that the inks will go onto the substrate is a necessary part of planning for flexographic printing. In this case, the black ink was correctly set to “overprint,” but it actually printed before the yellow did. (Does your brain hurt yet? Mine did!)
• The dies for flexographic printing (called the tooling) are much more expensive than the ones used for offset printing because they must be tooled onto the rounded metal cylinder. For this reason, it’s best to use an existing die size when possible. The cost to make new die for my project would have been $500 to $600!
• Ask the printer to suggest suitable existing dies for your project before finalizing your design and seeking client approval!

Do you have experience with flexographic printing? If so, please share your tips by leaving a comment. (Click “comments” at the top of the story.)

© 2010 Nani Paape

Little Sir Keeps-His-Word

Last week I fielded a few requests for referrals to good graphic designers, printers, and building contractors. As I described the vendors I recommended, I found myself saying, “These guys do what they say they will.” And that’s high praise, in my book.

The Stuckrath maxim

You see, I believe in the maxim handed down by my German-American grandfather, Kendall Stuckrath: “Your word is your bond.” No, he didn’t invent the maxim, but he did try to live by it. (He also seeded two generations of perfectionists while he was at it, but that’s another story!)

Granted, nobody is perfect (darn it!), and I for one have felt sheepish when I haven’t been able to keep a promise for one reason or another.

But I’ll bet that 99% of the time, most of us who provide a professional service knock ourselves out to make good on our word and refrain from making promises we can’t keep.

A designer friend and I talked about this just today. “That’s why parents tell their kids, ‘we’ll just have to see,’” he commented.

As the tables turn

A copywriter friend once advised me, “It doesn’t matter where you work next in advertising, it matters how you work. After all, you’ll see us all again.” She was so right! Former fellow employees became vendors, supervisors became clients, and co-workers became hiring managers.

Nobody can foretell which side of the bargaining table they’ll be sitting on in future business interactions. So when power relationships shift—as they inevitably do—and we find ourselves seated on a different side of that table than we were before, I am convinced that being regarded as people who keep our word can only help our prospects and yield great referrals.

Well we all shine on,
Like the moon and the stars and the sun,
Yeah we all shine on,
On and on and on on and on.

– John Lennon, from “Instant Karma”

Story © 2010 Nani Paape

I recently read an article about technological change written by Martha Beck. She says it’s no longer appropriate to ask, “Is your life on track?” She says that technological and cultural changes are happening so fast that there is no track anymore.

She suggests adopting a new metaphor—a kayak instead of a train—to more nimbly navigate into new, as-yet-uncharted waters.

I love print, I really, really do. I love knowing a process down to its minutia and guiding a project through to great results: A tactile object that’s as good as I can possibly make it, given time and budget constraints. Something real I can hold in my hands, examine, and know that it is beautiful. Something that has a start and a finish.

But the print world I love is changing fast. Over the past few years I’ve monitored the “Is print dead?” conversations as print industry insiders and commentators pondered whether the decline of print was just a part of the economic downturn or a permanent paradigm shift. Whichever it is, it’s not the good old days anymore.

Sightings from the bow

What I know first-hand is that print-related jobs are less plentiful than ever, especially for those of us whose passion is artisan print, not humdrum commoditized printing. So the chances of my spending the remaining years of my career in this specialty are shrinking by the day. For a long while, I have been deeply sad about that.

Now the time for sadness is over. The time for reinvention is upon me. My kayak calls.

But I don’t want to throw the “print baby” out with the bath water. I’m discovering new ways to use my writing and project planning skills to help designers and creative companies. And gradually, I’m discovering how transferable a print production manager’s approach to creative problems really is.

By nature, I ask:

• What steps are needed?
• What steps are most efficient and workable?
• Can we skip some?
• How do all the pieces (words, images, graphics) fit together?
• Do the product and the creative brief align?
• Is the product on brand?
• Does it align with the designer’s creative vision?
• Does it function well for the user?
• Is it beautiful?
• Does the visual hierarchy work?
• Does the quality measure up?

Drift or navigate?

So I float my boat toward a new, more liquid medium with intangible products that are never really done. Sometimes the water is surprisingly smooth. Other times it’s choppy, with unexpected currents and rapids.

But what about my wonderful tools, rubbed to patina through long use? I’m bringing them aboard, not leaving them behind—while leaving room for the new ones I’m adding as my journey continues.

© 2010 Nani Paape

Is that schedule padded?

In my book, a slightly padded project schedule is a good thing. If the client changes her mind, a new solution can be created. If the carton of paper is damaged, the ink won’t dry, or there’s a back-up in bindery, the deadline can still be met.

As an added bonus, studios look good to clients when the product still delivers on time, or even delivers sooner than promised.

Today, for example, I’m glad that my digital press vendor told me that he absolutely had to have the art on Tuesday in order to complete the print project that’s due to the client not later than this Friday afternoon. Sure enough, the files couldn’t release until Wednesday morning, but we will make that Friday deadline all the same. The printer had padded the turnaround time by a day.

It used to be that the more steps were in a project, the more padding was added to the schedule at each process step. When asked how much time they needed, design added two days extra, electronic production added a day, print management added three days. This allowed for taking care of unexpected developments, but sometimes resulted in more extra days than the project really required. People tend to look askance at these bloated schedules.

No padding in sight

Now that people have become accustomed to instantaneous results, I have observed that padding is becoming a foreign concept. Everything is electronic, right? What could possibly go wrong? Surely that step won’t take any time at all! This line of thinking results in production schedules that lack padding altogether. But if there’s a single glitch along the way, the job WILL be late.

Disaster avoidance tips

• Document the actual time your projects are taking. Are you meeting all milestones, or are certain steps taking longer more often than not? Use this information to build sufficient time into future schedules.
• Never make promises to a client without FIRST checking with your team to determine what’s possible. If you explain the challenges and ask for ideas, you’re likely to get the fast turn you hope for. But if you announce to your team that you’ve already promised the client without asking them, you’re going to get pushback or grudging acquiescence.
• Don’t assume that everyone has padded the schedule to allow time for every contingency. You might find yourself explaining a late job to an unhappy client.

A seasoned project planner has the experience to know where the pitfalls are most likely and add judicious padding to the schedule in key places. Those schedules will be realistic and doable, but un-bloated.

I think there’s a happy medium, don’t you?

© 2010 Nani Paape

Imagine my excitement

A design and strategy firm’s e-newsletter caught my attention this week. It featured an annual report the firm had produced for a client in both print and interactive form.

In describing the project, the strategist’s number one point was, “Print is not dead.” It went on to tout how print’s tangibility effectively supports brand communication.

Print is Still Integral

I am excited to see a design firm pitching the stance I’ve been promoting for over a year: Print is (still!) an important, integral aspect to any brand’s strategy.*

Granted, print design was not where the new business was to be found over the past two recessionary years, and hungry creative firms had to be responsive to what prospective clients were willing to buy.

But I’m happy to see this evidence that the pendulum is swinging back toward design and brand strategy professionals regarding print as a critical brand communication vehicle.

Hot tip

If your design firm has dropped print design from your sales pitch, I suggest that you add it back in—before the other guys beat you to it.

* See my blog articles, “Brand Learning Styles and the Place of Print” and “…People crave color and texture, the tangible and the real.”

© 2010 Nani Paape

In a past job, I planned and coordinated the installation of artworks in public spaces. On the days leading up to an installation, my mind would be full of worst-case scenarios as I mentally walked backwards and forward through the installation steps: “What if that cable breaks?” “What if those fasteners won’t work on that wall?” “What if that hand-painted silk fabric gets torn?”

My answer to these questions came in the form of my Just-In-Case bag, a huge canvas bag into which I would toss that reel of extra cable, alternate fasteners, bits of silk and thread, and any other solutions I thought up as those worries crossed my mind.

Sure enough, the installation team almost always needed one or more of the items I brought along in that bag on installation day.

Takeaways for project planning

Pre-planning for any project is like that, whether it’s an offset print project or a content plan for a website.

It involves walking through the project steps and milestones to figure out what extras should be tossed into the Just-In-Case bag.

If you’re the kind of person who notices whether the condiment bar at Starbucks is in a logical place in the store’s layout (yes, I do!), this kind of thinking process will come naturally. I think of it as good flow.

I have thought about that old canvas bag this week as I’ve worked on finalizing specifications for a complex casebound book project. I have pored over the design PDF and have mentally walked through all of the production steps. I have explored the final, crucial steps of custom binding and finishing for answers to: “How should the gatefold pages be set up?” “Will these folds work right?” “How will a single flyleaf page be attached?” “What size should endpages be in relation to the text and cover?”

I have been putting the answers in the bag, answers the designers will need to incorporate so the book will move smoothly through every production step along the way to becoming an exquisite finished product.

Projects in the bag

Contrary to myth, project planning can’t eliminate every obstacle. But thinking a project through from end to beginning to end is like filling a virtual Just-In-Case bag. This process anticipates and sidesteps as many obstacles as possible and ensures a more nimble response to those unavoidable surprises.

© 2010 Nani Paape

InDesign’s new “oh wow” features

This evening I went to Seattle’s Adobe InDesign User Group to see previews of some of InDesign 5′s new features.

Although my own InDesign needs are simple, I can see that many of the new features will make production of printed pieces much quicker and easier for designers and add accuracy to preparing files for print.

Here are the features that impressed me the most:

• Create different page sizes in one document, great for creating a spine or gatefold spread within the same document
• Make a headline span more than one text block at the push of a button
• Make multiple-column bulleted lists without hand tabbing or tables. These can be edited without any cutting and pasting.
• Automate creating a grid of photo frames for placing photos
• Easy, intuitive interface for changing photo crops and sizes
• Tools to change the gap between photos while keeping widths consistent

Interactivity Comes to InDesign

InDesign’s new interactive features for creating animated graphics for screen view are very impressive. Files can be saved as SWF or FLA files for use on the web or as interactive PDFs. Adding motion, sound, and embedded movies takes InDesign into entirely new territory!

Weighing Creative Suite Upgrade Options

The only downside I see to these new products is their steep cost, especially for solo designers and individuals, especially in a still-crappy economy. InDesign costs $599. But buying InDesign alone does not avail one of the many integrated features that make the Creative Suite so powerful, such as Adobe Bridge and integration with the other applications in the Suite, especially PhotoShop and Illustrator.

Adobe Creative Suite Premium costs a whopping $1,899. Yes, you get a lot, but that’s still a humongo chunk out of one’s pocket! Upgrading from an earlier Creative Suite Premium version costs $599 or more. My upgrade from CS3 Premium would be $799.

Buying individual products piecemeal adds up to much more than the $1,900 price tag, so that’s not the best option, either.

Since I don’t currently use all of the applications in the Suite, it’s a crapshoot to decide whether to get the bigger package, say,  just in case I might want to learn to use Dreamweaver sometime or finally master Illustrator.

Tonight the InDesign Users Group presenters reported that CS5 has so many significant new features that those who did not upgrade from CS3 to CS4 should definitely upgrade to CS5. Members of Adobe user groups do qualify for a 15% discount. (To find a user group near you, see the Adobe Groups website.)

What about you? Will you upgrade? If so, which package will you pick?

The Puget Sound Chapter of the American Marketing Association has just unveiled their new identity system, created for them by Modulor Associates, LLC.

Modulor Associates is an unusual design firm. Founded by Jeff Culver in 2009, Modulor is an information design consultancy that helps to bring order and clarity to complex organizations and their customer experiences. I like to think of what they do as designing extra-smart brands.

One big advantage of the new system Modulor designed for PSAMA is how it enables greatly improved cohesiveness of all visual communications from the organization, despite the fact that PSAMA is largely staffed by an ever-changing group of industry volunteers.

The new tools and processes they put in place also helped the PSAMA to dramatically improve its cost-effectiveness and efficiency.

The new system of tools and elements enables PSAMA volunteers to apply the brand consistently.

The new design template for PSAMA’s member event mailings builds brand recognition.

Style-wise, previous PSAMA mailings were all over the map.

Read All About It

For an in-depth description of Modulor Associates’ systematic approach to both simplifying the PSAMA identity system and making it easier to put to use, see the Modulor blog. You can also learn more about the thinking behind the design in a case study available for download there.

On the technical side, you can read about how I helped Modulor implement the PSAMA’s brand colors consistently across all touchpoints in this article on the Printing Disasters blog, Pinning Down Consistent Brand Color.

Congratulations, PSAMA and Modulor Associates—it’s wonderful to see such handsome and practical results!

In the previous article, I discussed designers’ challenges of maintaining consistent brand color. This topic stirred my curiosity, so I contacted Jim Raffel, a color expert I’d connected with on Twitter, to learn more.

Introducing Jim Raffel, color measurement pro

Jim is co-founder of ColorMetrix Technologies, LLC, a company that develops color verification and process control solutions for the printing and consumer packaged goods industries. Jim explained that these customers adopt color measurement systems to help them deliver consistent color in printed products.

Jim said that computer monitors, proofing machines and specific printing presses are all calibrated so that the way the colors look on screen and on proofs will be a reliable gauge of the color that will roll off the presses. Ambient light is also considered. You may have visited prepress rooms lit with subdued, controlled-spectrum lighting to ensure that what is seen on monitor screens is not affected by room’s lighting conditions.

The print industry has also developed color guidelines such as GRACoL and SWOP specifications and the ISO 12647 standards, along with software and tools for measuring and correcting how closely the colors align to these guidelines. Printers or print groups that adhere to these guidelines say they can make the colors match on any substrate.

Jim explained further that these systems all rely on scientific measurements of color rather than the human eye for extremely precise color matching. “We numerically quantify the color to get it right.”  L*a*b* color numbers are an example of this kind of physical measurement of color. Software and measurement devices like the ones ColorMetrix sells allow users to validate the monitors soft color proofs are viewed on and ascertain that hard copy proofs represent colors consistently.

He reflected that color is a bigger part of brands than ever, now that customers have so many more opportunities to see products online before seeing and picking a packaged product off the store shelf.

When prospective customers see products on screen first, designers have no control on how the real brand color is perceived, Jim commented. Monitor quality and settings also result in wide variation in how the colors look to the customer. “For truly critical color, you need a $2000 ISO standard monitor. Most monitors are very limited and quality varies widely.”

Jim emphasized that in our web-influenced world, tighter controls to get correct color may influence purchase decisions more than ever.

Design Studio color disaster avoidance tips

Sophisticated packaging professionals may have color consistency locked down, but what about design studios? The color looks different on each monitor, printers are not calibrated, and studios are brightly lit.

I asked Jim how graphic designers could get the colors they have in mind, both on screen and in print. Here are a couple of his suggestions:

Try a Simple Calibration Tool
Large studios working on consumer packaging for Fortune 500 companies invest in color verification systems like the ones ColorMetrix offers. But Jim suggests taking a stab at color control with an inexpensive, user-friendly monitor and printer calibrating device called ColorMunkie. “Even calibrating studio monitors and printers weekly can help a designer get relatively consistent, repeatable color,” he advised.

Investigate Alternate Printing Techniques
Jim also told me that extended gamut inks can reproduce a much wider range of colors than 4-color process inks. You may be familiar with extended gamut and not know it: Some ink jet printers use an extended range of ink colors: light magenta and light cyan in addition to CMYK.

Although extended gamut systems have not been adopted by the majority of printers, some consumer packaging printers are using extended gamut systems to capture a wider range of brand colors more accurately. All use the 4 process colors, plus 2 or more additional colors. You can read more about extended gamut here.

Learn More
To read more about color verification tools and solutions, visit the ColorMetrix Technologies web site. Also check out what Jim Raffel calls his “geeky”collection of color information bookmarks for web sites covering everything from color blindness to color management and analysis.

This is just the tip of the color measurement iceberg. I welcome your thoughts. Please continue the conversation by leaving a comment. Thanks!

I’ve been observing changes in the the traditional logo design process.

Logos are now being developed for web use first—both as static marks and ones that incorporate motion graphics. Secondarily the logo designs are extended to the print medium and two-dimensional uses.

By reversing the more traditional design process order, this new paradigm presents greater complexity and challenges, including accurate translaton of RGB color to Spot or CMYK inks.

One designer’s color questions: a case study

Jeff Culver, Modulor LLC founder, recently asked my advice on selecting 4-color builds for a new brand he was developing for the Puget Sound Chapter of the American Marketing Association. He also wanted to know whether there was anything he could do to ensure that the brand colors would reproduce consistently across different media and substrates.

First of all, Jeff said, he was really happy with the way the colors looked on screen. That’s not surprising—the RGB color space can represent a far greater percentage of the colors our eyes can perceive than the CMYK color space can. Plus, RGB color always looks more vibrant than CMYK.

He also liked the coated Pantone® chips he’d picked to represent these colors, but was disappointed with the way they looked in ink drawdowns on uncoated papers.

The irony was that for this particular brand, the logo would rarely be printed in spot colors. Usually it would be digitally printed, but he was not pleased with the CMYK digital test prints he had done so far, either.

First we reviewed  the ink formulas for the colors he had selected and decided on alternates that had more a more rich, complex combination of mixing colors in the formulas to give him a more vibrant result. Then I recommended that he create a test document with a grid of different 4-color builds on the page. Jeff had a printer produce a color proof of this document.

Color Builds and Blends Test for PSAMA © 2010 Modulor Assoc. LLC, used by permission.

From this test proof he was able to determine the best 4-color builds to specify as the official brand builds. (I’ve often found that you can find a closer match to the spot than the one Pantone suggests.)

He also included some of the brand graphics on the test. The test results gave him the information he needed for final adjustments and brand color call-outs for RGB, Spot, and CMYK.

Color disaster avoidance tips

Consider Application Up Front
A well-designed brand identity is versatile enough to work well in a variety of applications. However, identifying the predominant uses of the brand will help focus your decisions on type sizes, colors, and level of complexity.

For example, a logo that will be printed often at a small size needs to be simpler. A complex, multi-petaled flower motif will just look like a bug splat at 3/16″ in diameter! Will your logo withstand photocopying? Not if it’s non-repro blue! Can it be embroidered on a fleece jacket? How will it read on a billboard? A web page?

The Color Bridge shows you colors that do—or don't—build well.

Select Only Buildable Colors
I recommend that designers specify only Pantone Matching System spot colors that include the 4-dot mark, Pantone’s indication that the color can be successfully reproduced in 4-color process inks. Refer to a Pantone Color Bridge fan to see PMS colors and builds side-by-side.

Invest in Cool New Tools
Pantone’s new GOE color system offers nearly twice as many spot, CMYK, sRGB and HTML color options as the original Pantone Matching System, arranged much more intuitively.

The newest generation of both of these color tools include RGB and LAB values on every chip, making it easier to align color for web and print applications.

Involve a Printer Before Standards are Nailed Down
A printer can order ink drawdowns for you on both coated and uncoated stock and can run test proofs to check your builds. An experienced prepress department can recommend build adjustments to make your colors read better.

Pick Your Color Hero
When your project calls for printing a variety of printed pieces on different substrates, decide ahead of time which piece would make the best color hero. Then print that piece first and provide each printer with a printed color hero example to match. Often the best candidate is a piece printed on coated stock.

Do you have other suggestions on brand color? If so please add to the conversation by leaving a comment. Thanks!