By Liz Stevens, writer, UV+EB Technology
Precise Digital Printing, Inc. (PDP), of Bensenville, Illinois, is a trade-only printer of banners, rigid signs, decals and more for the Chicagoland area. The company offers digital printing, installation, product development, print embellishments, quality assurance, lamination, banner finishing, fulfillment and kitting. It offers an array of full-color print options, from large-format flatbed printing to 10-foot roll-to-roll photographic quality signage and graphics. PDP also excels at printing and embellishing items with micro-scale features, produced with the finest print accuracy and haptic elements.
PDP recently earned a Gold Award in the Foil & Specialty Effects Association’s Gold Leaf Awards Competition for its beer bottle label submission in the category of Best use of Foil/Embossing – Label (Self Promotion). PDP’s Brian Alvarado, marketing director, designed the label. Joe Koritko, PDP’s digital manager, gave UV+EB Technology insight into the project.
Designing for Louie Bird Brewery
Three labels were produced for Joe Koritko’s home-brewed beer brand, Louie Bird Brewery, for his Frosted Sunshine, Stout of Gold and Centamaritra IPA brews. Each label includes intricate designs with foil embellishment, incredibly tiny yet clearly legible text and raised areas that give the labels a fine, subtle texture. The Frosted Sunshine label has a light, bright and reflective modern design with raised gold and silver foil. The Stout of Gold label has a dark background with vintage style micro-scale dots, lines and tick marks that are foiled and raised. The Centamaritra IPA label has a vintage look, with subtle tone-on-tone decorative printing in the background, raised white text and raised gold foil designs. PDP used an HP Latex R2000 printer and a Scodix Ultra 2000S unit for embellishment. The substrate is a General Formulations 222 6mil decal.
Joe Koritko described the label design choices. “The names were chosen from my own home-brewed beers,” he said. “I gave them to our lead designer, Brian Alvarado, and he ran with it. He understood the identity I was going for and who the target audience was. After brainstorming some visual themes that matched the beer’s flavor profile, we knew we had some winners,” Koritko said. With a design that is produced through different applications, Koritko explained that the design must be separated into what aspects will be printed vs. which aspects will be created with foil or spot UV. “Any design elements that were foil were removed from the print layer and put on a separate layer,” he said. “The print layer was done with the HP Latex R2000 printer, and the foil layer was added later with the Scodix Ultra 2000S unit.”
“For the print layer,” said Koritko, “the R2000 uses CMYK inks with light magenta and light cyan. One of our labels was more of a gray color, while the others were charcoal black. The R2000 uses hot airflow to dry and cure the ink. The water evaporates, leaving the latex on the material.” For the foil layer, Kurz gold and holographic foils were used on the Ultra 2000S unit. “The Frosted Sunshine label used a combination of gold and holographic foils,” Koritko said. “The Stout of Gold label used gold foil. The height of the foil built-up areas for the labels was 60 microns, delivered in one pass.”
The UV curing on the Scodix Ultra 2000 follows a three-step process. “Right after the embellishment initially is printed, a relatively weak LED 395 nm light stops the polymer from spreading,” said Koritko. “The piece then goes under an Hg UV lamp at low power before the foil is stamped, making the polymer sticky so that the foil adheres to it. Then the piece goes though one last UV lamp at full power to fully cure the embellishment. There are benefits to using raised UV. For one, you can feel the shapes that are made by the polymer, which I believe makes holding the bottle a unique experience. The other benefit is how light reflects off the raised foil to give more of a three-dimensional shine that you would not get if the foil was flush with the rest of the label.”
Brian Alvarado described the response to these promotional pieces. “The overall reactions we received were very positive ones,” he said. “People commented on the visual elements and the story that the labels told about the beer, often stating that the labels were eye-catching with their unique and bold designs. People absolutely fell in love with our design and said that with the embellishment aspects on our labels, we would definitely stand out on the shelves above other beer brands.”
For more information, visit www.precisedigitalprinting.com.
