Screen Printing

There are many different types of print in the corrugated industry, and beyond that, a variety of machines that are utilized to put print on those cartons. Many of them have their own restrictions in place, to maximize their efficiency on specialized runs.

While it would be nice to have every type of printing capability to give unlimited possibilities for the customer, sometimes an artistic vision will indirectly hit a limit that requires a more creative solution. In those cases, you can start to run into use cases where a die-cutter machine is utilized. A machine like this might have 3 or even 4 color printing capabilities that offer a wider variety to the end customer, so that they can put the same passion into the packaging design, as they do the product itself. The following example is a four color print job (red, pink, blue, and yellow) that is being printed on white board:

The design itself is vibrant and colorful, but the machine that it would provide the best options for a consistent run is limited to three colors. At this point in the process, if it becomes clear that the customer isn't able to remove a color from the design, we can provide a solution in the form of "screen printing."

Instead of having both a red and pink color on the carton, we can use screening to create the illusion of shades of the same color, or similiar colors on the color pallete. This is achieved by taking what was essentially a solid block of print plate material being used to "stamp" coverage onto the carton, and then creating small valleys in the material, which, in turn, creates small dots. Now the same red ink color is able to utilize the white from the board, to create a visual illusion of the color pink, while printing all the solid red in the same pass:

While this doesn't work for all cases, sometimes an elegant solution like this can keep a carton on a machine that runs more efficiently, which can help reduce the cost that would come with multiple passes on the machine, or additional printing plates.