Why Brand Managers shouldn't go on press. . .

In my 14 years working first as an art director for CCL label, and then as packaging manager for Snapple Beverage Group/Cadbury Schweppes Americas Beverages (now called Dr Pepper/Snapple Group) on brands such as Mistic, Nantucket Nectars, Mott's, Stewart's Root beer, Orangina and Yoo-hoo Chocolate Drink, I have found that most design firms need a helping hand once they get to the mechanical phase of artwork development.

Design firms bring a broad scope of creative talent and skills to the early and middle phases of design. This would include materials for focus groups, senior management sell-in and then finally into mechanical development, but not the actual mechanicals. Why is this the case? Because; the talent and artists are focused more on great design rather than packaging execution. Not only that, a “mechanical” means something different to a designer than to a printer.

Packaging, as we all know, consists of vastly different processes for the production of the various components: registered shrink sleeve, aluminum can and bottle, pressure sensitive and cut-and-stack label, closure, paperboard and direct or preprint corrugate development.

Each kind of packaging brings with it the baggage of the printing process it is tied to: traditional offset litho, dry offset, flexography, letterpress, narrow web screen printing, roto-gravure and even digital printing.

While the design firm can get the art 'finalized' by submitting the file with the high res files, the color builds are usually off or the die line might not be in the final development stages. The printer might need to deploy a special color build for a match because there may be less color stations available on the press than the job was specified with. 

Even the best design firms struggle with the ability to achieve color, traps and printing effects and this is compounded by the Brand Managers lack of printing experience and prepress. No one likes to get the call from the printer in the final stages of production that an effect can not be achieved or worse, that the press is down the results of which cause delays, scrapped material and at worst, a delayed launch-to-market.

One solution is to employ a central engraver to provided proofs and work directly with the printer and design firm to tie the two goals together. Alternatively the print vendor knows their equipment and they may have in-house prepress that can be utilized to get the job done.

Just make sure to always ask for your files back after the job is complete for future alterations. The communication between the design firm and the printers is critical to great design and great, uninterrupted production. The earlier this communication can happen the better for everyone. 

Have you ever experienced these issues with your packaging?