labels  packaging  diecutting  awards 
Painstaking research and development into the techniques of die-cutting has paid off for Gisborne print company Logan Print, whose expertise in label printing led to outstanding success at the prestigious Pride In Print Awards. Against competition from New Zealand’s leading print companies, Logan Print won three Awards, all in the labels category. Its two Gold Medals were for matching lid and tub in-mould labels for Weiss Sorbet, and an in-mould lid label for a two-litre tub of Tip Top Vanilla Ice Cream which was resistant to heat, cold, moisture and scratching.

Both jobs were sheet-fed offset printed in six colours on polypropylene film.

Logan Print General Manager Matt Logan says overcoming the special challenges the jobs presented was down to extensive analysis of international techniques followed by focused investment in plant.

“Through a long research and development programme we have developed specific tooling and equipment modifications t optimise the cutting accuracy on these substrates. This is necessary to enable the users’ robotics to apply the labels precisely during the moulding process.

“The accuracy has to be precise. The Gold entries (Tip Top and Weiss) were printed on very light voided polypropylene film which compresses during cutting, causing size and shape variations.

“On the Weiss sorbet label for example, the tub label was die-cut with eight butt joins to provide a continuous 360-degree seamless print on the moulded pack.”

Mr Logan said he thought the entries gaining Gold Awards probably won the judges’ approval because their quality of photographic offset print reproduction was technically-difficult to achieve on such substrates.

“Other print processes tend to approach the substrate with coarse screening and have dot gain issues that can affect the finer nuances of the photographic images. Printing very fine screen dots and strong solids simultaneously on such a challenging substrate may have been deemed highly-demanding,” he said.

The Pride In Print success has had marketing spin-off for the company – which works to a Vision Statement of "guaranteed Gold Medal performance” -- helping improve and consolidate its relationship with its customers.

“As the in-mould labels were presented on the finished packs we had to request permission from the brand owner and have the entries supplied from the moulder. So there was a high awareness of the Awards by our greater supply line and the results were much anticipated.

“It confirmed to all involved that the brands are being marketed to a very high standard,” said Mr Logan.

He added that the Pride In Print concept plays a very important role by giving NZ printers an opportunity to benchmark their best efforts against others.

“The marketing/PR opportunities following a win are hard to emulate any other way. While I wouldn’t expect any printer to directly increase sales from an Award success, for genuinely quality-orientated businesses, Golds from Pride In Print must support their customers’ perceptions of quality.”

To top off the Pride In Print success, Logans also won a Highly Commended Award for a label for DB Amstel Light Beer, printed in five colours to Amstel international standards, with a combination of opaque and transparent inks on metallic linen-embossed label-grade paper.

Logan Print has entered the Pride In Print Awards for the past three years, for a total of four Golds and four Highly Commended Awards.

Known colloquially as "Logans”, the company’s 35 staff are based 100 metres from the Pacific high-tide mark in Gisborne in what is described as a “very funky, bright two-storey premises, fully climate-controlled”.

Working to a strategy of looking for innovation and high value, Logans trains all its our own staff, with a policy of finding the best raw talent and teaching them what they need to know.

The company specialises in sheet-fed label printing for patch glue applications (such as beer bottles), wrap-around labels (such as cans and jars) and in-mould (such as plastic dairy containers).

On the drawing board for 2006 is a new six-colour press and architectural bulk store.