Bruno Vermeulen, EMEA marketing director at Esko, talks about how brand owner needs are being addressed by creatively innovative operations.
There’s no doubt that the market shift in the creation and production of sign, display and wide-format applications is shaping the relationship print operations have with their clients. It is a shift that is being encouraged by a level of education that previously did not exist. Esko has talked about the process of 'design to print-and-cut’ for quite a while. As brand owners are challenged for more creative ways to gain attention on the aisles and shelves, basic, straightforward applications such as rectangular signs or one part displays often no longer do the trick.
We are all educating brand owners and offering more capabilities and ways to be creative. Print providers,, instead of offering just two-dimensional work, are increasingly providing other services such as contoured shapes, a greater range of materials, and cutting and creasing. This allows for the cultivation of designers who want to do more creative work. Showing them the range of materials and applications available and providing advice on the endless possibilities actually makes designers more imaginative.
One of the best ways to do this is to show designers that print doesn’t mean they are limited to two dimensions. Esko offers ideas and tools for three-dimensional item creation, such as POP/POS, boxes and stand-up displays. ArtiosCad for example, a popular tool for structural design, helps designers create structure and offer cutting and folding instructions for the graphics designer, as well as final instructions for the cutting tool. It even comes with libraries of displays, so designers can start with a pre-designed template, and customise them for their own use. With Esko DeskPack plug-ins for Adobe Illustrator, graphic designers – often on the brand side – can import structural designs, add graphics and see them as 3D images rotating on the screen. Taking 3D one step further, virtual proofs help designers and brand owners to see how a product display will look on a store aisle.
Of course, all of this software is useless if a cutting table is not capable of reading slight distortions that either come from the printer or from the placement of the substrate on the table. The i-camera on a Kongsberg table finds and reads registration marks quickly and accurately. It helps to individually adjust cut files to perfectly match printed graphics. Finishing is adapted to the shape of the graphics.
Esko is trying to help the education process. One way is by getting more involved in brand-owner oriented events. Esko has actively exhibited at trade show events; some that are specifically targeted towards designers, and others that are targeted to specific industries, or brand owners in general. Esko has also been participating in seminars, many times with its own presentations.
Esko also encourages brands to attend its EskoWorld events, where certain presentation tracks are developed exclusively for them. With events such as EskoWorld, the company offers greater access to knowledge, and that enables customers to have answers at their fingertips. Covering all topics from digital flexo, commercial print to finishing, packaging, structural design to 3D design and brand management, this event not only enhances users' knowledge about the Esko solutions they use, it also expands their understanding about the industry’s latest trends.
EskoWorld is a learning experience for both its users and the company itself – the intention being to gain a vision of how to optimise systems to build business. Just as important for Esko, feedback helps it set the right priorities for its product development roadmaps and inspires its overall strategy.
Esko has also launched a very helpful blog site for designers and brand owners. It includes design ideas, packaging trends and tips on how to best create packaging. Categories include innovative packaging, creative packaging, food packaging, eco packaging, and many more. At the time this article was written, the headlines were 'Successful product packaging - More than meets the eye', 'Top 3 tried-and-true packaging trends', '3 ways to make your packaging design appeal to men', and 'How to create the best packaging design'. The blog can be found at www.packaginginnovation.com, and is definitely worth a visit.