Best of Show Boxes

Published: July 01, 2011, By By Claudia Hine, Managing Editor

With competing brands nestled together on retail shelves, consumer products companies must rely on converters' perfect execution of the package designers' concepts to make the sale. Converters, in turn, must rely on the capabilities of their staff and their printing equipment to do the job right.

Here are two examples of well-executed printing that earned Gold and Best of Show awards from the Flexographic Technical Assn., Ronkonkoma, NY, in its 2011 Excellence in Flexography competition. For a complete list of winners, visit www.pffc-online.com.

Preprinted Linerboard (Process)

Vibrant seven-color printing on Crisco's Pure Peanut Oil box earns SCI, Mississauga, ON, Canada, top honors in the Preprinted Linerboard category. The converter delivers tight registration across a four-up, 90-in.-wide web, including process images on all four panels, heavy ink coverage, and multiple combination plates at 133 lpi.

SCI uses water-based ink, supplied by Sun Chemical, on a Cobden Chadwick central impression press for this box. Judges call it an overall excellent job of matching the prepress target.

With obvious confidence in his company's capabilities, Chad A. Muan, senior sales/production coordinator, says, “We choose all our print competition entries at random.” But the bright graphics and the registration demands of the Crisco package, which highlighted their printing execution, were two key factors in SCI's decision to enter it in the FTA competition, he says.

Corrugated (Process)

Running a large coverage area of black across corrugation brings Lewisburg Container Co., Lewisburg, OH, an excellence award for the Duracell My Grid Charge Pad for Cell Phones box. Four-color printing at 6,000 sheets/hr using water-based ink on a Bobst press produces this project, which also requires the black background to fade into the main image for added difficulty. Judges also are impressed with how the converter handles the main image neutrality and reverse-out information.

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