Special FX

Commercial print firms are expanding into "specialty" offerings. Everything from pop-ups to shelf-talkers, cosmetic samples to lenticular images, security printing to luxuriously converted decorative items (e.g., highly decorated book components and specialty papers) and wide-format prints are among a growing list of complex offerings.

"In the past three years, specialty printing has doubled in business," says Dennis Collins, sheetfed pressroom manager at Cenveo Color Art, St. Louis. Two factors drive printers into this field: a push to stand out in a commercial sector crowded with commodity printers, and a goal of adding value to the print medium.

It's a good move—provided the numerous production challenges can be mastered. Print customers are aiding this trend as retailers, advertisers and media planners look to dramatic print vehicles to lure audiences and shoppers suffering from dwindling attention spans and sensory overload. Specialty printing is a natural evolution, incorporating a vocabulary of effects that differentiates market messages and encourages consumer interactivity.

Look down any retail aisle and count the number of bobbling, colorful items seeking your attention—you'll get an idea of the volume. As retail stores are used increasingly as a form of marketing media, there has been an explosion of merchandising-services companies, which are key customers for specialty work. In 1996, there were fewer than 100 merchandising-services companies specializing in retail materials, says the industry group Point of Purchase Assn. International. Now, there are more than 500 such companies, with 50,000 people working in the field, using print to build brands within the retail space.

Printers are interweaving numerous techniques to create the complex offerings, including:

• presses with inter-station curing running hybrid UV/conventional inks on cartons, plastics
• stochastic or hybrid imaging
• inline diecutting, folding and gluing (see article on page 24)

Inks, too, are key players in this effort: Specialized inks formulated for synthetic papers (Hop-Syn, Yupo, Poly-Art); metallics, pearlescents and specialties (such as K&E's MetalFX metallic matching system); and inks designed to withstand heat-shaping of preprinted styrene sheets. Add coatings to the mix, also—Bullseye varnish and tinted varnishes, for example. Kustom Group, Richmond, KY, has developed a "Strike-Thru" finish that combines dull varnish with aqueous coating in a single pass through the press. It offers better protection and rub-resistance for the matte finish because the gloss protects the sheet and, as it dries, allows the matte to show through.

Press infeeds are seeing loads of plastics (both .01″ thick and lightweights), foils, even magnets and wood. Emerging markets such as radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags, which require metallic inks on springy substrates, and those incorporating counterfeit-thwarting security taggants—as well as holographic and pantographic patterns (some even using DNA to authenticate products)—also are garnering interest.

Among the obvious hurdles for moving into such specialty work are costs of capital investment, technology adoption, employee training and, somewhat unique to the specialty-printing field, the costs of research and development. "Items that look simple, many times are very complicated," says Raymond Prince, senior technical consultant for PIA/GATF. Key to entering the field, he suggests, "is to understand the substrate and its end use."

Encouragement comes from press manufacturers and, perhaps surprisingly, ink suppliers, easing the way into specialty printing. "Press manufacturers—sheetfed, that is—are doing a lot to help printers use specialty materials: feeders that do not mark clear plastic, delivery systems that do not mark, inline corona units, roll to sheet for very lightweight plastic, and flexo units in front of litho units," says Prince. "Ink manufacturers have always been very approachable on customizing ink or developing specialty inks. Likewise, we are seeing new ink additives come on the market to dramatically reduce dry time."

Here's a look at four key specialty segments—and some printers who've succeeded in them:

Arcade Marketing, the New York-based unit of Enterprise-Jostens Holding, is a leading manufacturer of cosmetic samplers and perfume scratch-and-sniff items. The firm employs 27 different technologies to dispense samples of fragrances, food aromas, cosmetics and live product samples. The samplers arrive to consumers via store hand-outs, magazine inserts and, notably, direct mail. Its sister firm, Lehigh Direct, focuses on direct marketing, adding a Goss M600 last month with in-line Versamark inkjet. A key competitor for Arcade in the fragrance arena is Baltimore-based Vertis.

Arcade's primary plants are in Baltimore and Chattanooga, TN. They are equipped with a host of presses, modified for what are frequently proprietary processes. Press lines include multi-unit heatsets and specially designed small-format webs, flexo and screen-print lines, and thermo-formers.

Arcade begins with a marketer's essential oils or bulk emollients. Testing and analyzing is the first step for processing samples into one of Arcade's branded items: ScentStrip, MicroFragrance Scratch 'n' Sniff and AromaLacquer. The firm's in-house laboratory microencapsulates supplied oils into a viscous slurry. This slurry is applied inline as the paper stock is being printed at web speeds. Precise patterns and capsule sizes are critical to a successful scent experience.

"These operations are a complex mixture of art and science," says Louis Zafonte, Arcade's Sr. VP of marketing and business development.

Many restrictions apply. Fragrances cannot release prematurely as they pass through the mail, for example. And millions of widely dispersed samples must be safe when handled by millions of unknown recipients—including children. "It takes very talented pressmen to ensure a high-quality product," Zafonte notes. Complicating the matter further, sampling often is timed to multiple department store promotions, requiring a lot of versioning. "Our pressmen routinely make dozens of plate changes for each job," he says.

Four years ago, Sussex, WI's Color Ink installed a 41″ KBA six-color hybrid press—UV and conventional mixed—to print on a variety of substrates, including vinyl, plastic, fluted and Curious paper, Arjo Wiggins' line of colorful converted-paper materials.

Color Ink supplies a nationwide clientele with large-format posters, signs, trade show exhibits, in-store exhibits, static clings, packaging and magnets. The firm has seen high growth in plastic printing on styrene and polypropylene substrates—requiring precise knowledge of handling the substrates and inks tailored to match.

"There's a significant learning curve involved in printing specialty work," says Tom Murel, Color Ink executive VP. "On the substrate side, we undertook a lot of research to narrow down our range to 20 different primary substrates that we use." Always evaluating new materials, he notes that pricier substrates can be up to 70% of a job's cost—30% more than conventional paper.

To avoid waste on some temperamental materials, "you need a highly trained press operator," says Murel. "We give our operators six months of training. And we've spent a considerable amount of time determining which ink sets will bond the best on the substrate without scratching or wearing off." Flint Ink operates an on-site ink lab to lend expertise to Color Ink's press operators.

Great Lakes Graphics (GLG), Skokie, IL, is another player in the specialty-printing game. GLG uses a 40″ MAN Roland 706 press with inline UV coating to print INX International's VersaCure ink on styrene, plastic and other substrates. The 33-year-old company got into special FX—including custom packaging and point-of-purchase (POP), such as floor graphics and static clings—three years ago. "Our customers want their stuff to jump," says VP Ron Bjelopetrovich. "They want people to reach for their products," adding that printing beyond the media clutter has GLG's sales jumping, too.

Vision Graphics, Loveland, CO, geared up for printing on plastics (it does a lot of affinity and charge cards) by adding an 18,000-sph, six-color Roland 500 hybrid/conventional offset press with UV coating from Graph Expo. The 23×29″ press features Nordson inter-unit UV curing and Nordson infrared dryer at the delivery.

To assist in formulating inks for its specialized projects—which also include maps printed on wear-resistant synthetic papers (Yupo, Poly-Art and Hop-Syn have been successfully run)—Vision partnered with xpedx for an in-plant ink lab featuring K&E products.

Mark Steputis, president, abandoned a niche approach, instead embracing specialty work along with general commercial runs. "Corporate print buyers don't want to scroll through their contacts to find the CD guy, the packaging guy, the catalog printer, the mailing specialists, " he says.

The 454-employee Outlook Group produces all types of printing and packaging in Neenah, WI—labels; in-pack and on-pack promotions; paperboard packaging (such as cartons, sleeves and CD-ROM covers); commercial printing; direct-mail pieces; contract packaging, as well as secondary packaging; flexible packaging for food and consumer products; and multi-web laminations.

Outlook's 600,000 sq.ft. of manufacturing, warehouse and distribution features a sheetfed department with seven 40″ and 50″ presses; a label web press department with 13 lines ranging from 7″ to 20″ and up to 14 colors; and a flexible packaging department running three presses, from 36″ to 57″ and up to eight colors. Outlook ships products throughout the U.S., as well as to Puerto Rico, Ireland, China, Canada and Mexico.

One area of concentration for Outlook is sports cards, which it produces for most major card companies in the country. Enhancements to these cards differentiate card companies and entice collectors. Cards are printed on a variety of stocks, including foil-face materials and plastics.

Specialty printing now represents a high percentage of Outlook's services—embossing, foil-stamping, diecutting, folding and gluing, as well as printing using unique separations processes and dot patterns on unusual substrates, including lenticular.

"We invest heavily in R&D for the production of new specialty products in all areas of our business," says Mike Von Brendel, VP of sales at Outlook Group. Three or four people work full time on product development, "supported by teams of production associates who are working to convert ideas and concepts into workable products," he says

Cenveo Color Art, a 279-employee general commercial sheetfed and web printer located in St. Louis, runs a 64″ six-color KBA Rapida 162A hybrid UV/conventional sheetfed press using INX VersaCure inks to print on plastic, vinyls, foils and other unusual substrates. "We used to use hybrid inks one week out of the month; now we use them two weeks out of the month," pressroom manager Dennis Collins says of the growing volume.

One of the company's most demanding jobs was a 4,000-run display on 38-mil Lexam Plexiglas. The 18-color project made four passes through press before being cut to a 24×54″ light box.

While most of its specialty printing is for POP displays, Cenveo Color Art also prints plastic jobs converted on three-dimensional vacuum forms. One example, for the National Football League, incorporated plastic sheets, sent after printing to a vacuum form manufacturer for heating and molding into three-dimensional football helmet forms.

The firm works closely with the designer, the client and the vacuum former so that colors are not diminished or distorted as the plastic stretches. Three INX employees work in the printing plant full time and help to determine which inks will have the best adhesion and printability on these highly specialized projects.