Corrugated box color flexo printing

Corrugated box printing development

With the continuous development of society, the printing of corrugated boxes has gradually become more and more sophisticated with high quality and visual effects. In this development process, there are roughly four stages:

1. Monochrome simple text printing

Due to various factors such as the printing machine, printing plate, and ink, the corrugated boxes at this stage only serve as a packaging product and a simple identification function. Plates are also mainly hand-engraved rubber plates, and the carton form is relatively single.

2. Monochrome half tone image and line printing with more than two colors

With the development of printing and supporting technologies, there have been some changes in the printing of corrugated boxes during this period. Some simple monotone halftone images and two or more lines can be printed. The carton packs show an initial colorization and the use of sensitization begins. Resin version.

3. Color halftone image superimposition

The development of new plate making technology has laid a solid foundation for the printing of colorful corrugated cartons. In this process, the advantages of the resin plate and the three primary colors are fully displayed, and the visually intense color corrugated boxes begin to appear.

4. Pre-printing

Since the pre-printing was first printed on the web, and then on the corrugated production line for compounding and slitting, the color printing level of the corrugated box showed a qualitative leap. However, due to large investment and high technical content, pre-printing is still in its infancy in China.

Corrugated box color flexo printing has become inevitable

Nowadays, people's understanding of packaging has undergone a fundamental change. The pleasing and easy transportation is the top priority. Corrugated cartons are no longer a simple package. This trend can be said to be inevitable.

First, the shift from a planned economy to a market economy has led to increased competition for similar products. While pursuing high quality and low prices, whoever attracts consumers and inspires their desire to buy, whoever will inevitably take the initiative in the market. Many commodity manufacturers have realized this, and have made big fuss about advertising and packaging.

Secondly, from the point of view of the company's development strategy, simple packaging is not conducive to establishing a corporate brand image, and it often gives consumers the feeling that the product has a low technological content and is made in a messy manner. From a technical point of view, simple packaging is more likely to be counterfeited, resulting in a decline in product sales and creditworthiness, and the potential losses it brings are incalculable.

Third, the deterioration of the environment has made people fully realize the importance of environmental protection. Because the photosensitive resin plate uses environmentally-friendly solvents during the production process, water-based inks are used in the printing process, which greatly reduces the environmental pollution caused by printing. Therefore, the direct color printing of corrugated cartons will certainly become the trend of color carton printing.

Corrugated carton flexo development space is huge

At present, in the world, packaging printing has formed offset, gravure, flexo printing tripod, but from the overall development trend, flexographic printing will dominate. Thus, the development space for flexo printing and coloring of corrugated boxes is enormous. This can be seen from the following analysis:

1. Lower production costs

The corrugated carton offset printing process adopts the method of printing and coloring before recombination and die-cutting. However, flexographic printing directly prints the paperboard and then die-cuts. The production efficiency is high, the material consumption is less, and thus the production cost is lower.

2. High carton strength

Because of the low strength of the offset carton in different production processes, it is not conducive to long-distance transportation and affects the sales of products in a wide range of markets. Flexo printing is light pressure printing, which has little effect on the strength of the carton.

3. Good visual effect

From a visual point of view, offset printing is better than flexo printing, but this gap will be smaller and smaller with the development of flexo printing. What's more, the corrugated boxes reflect the visual effect at a distance of 3 to 5mm. In this range, the visual effects of flexographic and offset printing are very different.

4. Product can be counterfeit

On the one hand, it is difficult to obtain print data from a flexo-color mesh print product. On the other hand, the cost of producing a simulated flexographic product is also very high, which has a certain degree of control over counterfeiters.

Development of Domestic Corrugated Boxes

In China, the development of color printing on corrugated boxes is uneven. Most of the carton factories still stay on simple network and line printing, and coastal Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Qingdao and other regions have begun to engage in color dot overprinting and have achieved success. Taking Qingdao as an example, Tsingtao Brewery's outer packaging changed from simple line printing to four-color printing with three-color performance, which further strengthened the branding of Tsingtao Brewery products and played a significant role in product anti-counterfeiting. . Overall, the rapid development of color mesh carton printing in coastal and economically developed regions has lags behind in the west and economically underdeveloped regions.

At this stage, in terms of printing conditions in China, the basics of flexible color printing are basically established:

1. There are excellent professional flexo plate making companies in China.

2. The use of water-based ink is basically mature.

3. Many carton factories in China have introduced three-color and four-color corrugated carton printing slot machines.

4. A variety of auxiliary materials can meet the needs.

Of course, the complete hardware and supporting facilities may not produce high-quality color corrugated box printing products, which is also closely related to the specific precision of printing operators and machines. At present, the problems in color corrugated box printing are mainly reflected in inaccurate overprinting, over-inking, incorrect printing sequence, mismatch between printing plate number and anilox roller number, and many other aspects. These problems that arise during the printing process can be gradually adjusted through actual operations and eventually reach a perfect level.

In summary, the color printing of corrugated boxes is an inevitable trend. Full understanding of this trend and actions will lead the company to stay ahead of the technology and market, accelerate the sound development of the company, increase the added value of products, and enable the company to take an advantage in the competition.