Proofing Tools and Know-How at Cyber Help Martin's Launch New Kettle Chips

Accurate proofing of this complex design for a flexo-printed bag allowed Martin's to have confidence in their Kettle Gold launch.

As many designers know, half of the trick of designing a package is ensuring that it will sell product off the shelf. The other half is to ensure that the design can be printed. Bryce Corporation's Cyber Graphics is a prepress company that is focused on bringing complex design ideas into reality, blending design creativity with the technical requirements of flexographic printing.

Family-owned Martin's Potato Chips recently introduced its Kettle Gold Potato Chips, the first new chip product it has launched in many years. "Martin's approached our design department to create what they call the 'baseline SKU'—the initial design upon which the company would design its Kettle Gold brand extensions," says John Davis, Cyber Graphics' art director. "Martin's requested a package design that suggested a down-home feel, with attention to the sunflower oil."

Shana Rogers, one of Cyber's graphic designers, has a unique blend of packaging and printing experience. Cyber designers add value to package design by applying cutting edge graphics that are friendlier to the flexo printing process. Beyond creating the art file to customers' specifications, other facets of the job include ensuring the design is compliant with FDA laws, creating UPC codes, proof reading copy, sending proofs for approval and, finally, generating the art file for film or plate output.

A field of flowers

From Cyber's original four concepts, Martin's chose a design that included process color (CMYK) images and a variety of spot colors. A sunflower became an important visual element—not only up front in the design, but as an important background element over the entire silver foil bag.

The background is overlaid with a light Pantone 110 yellow with 65% and 100% coverage. Over that is a tinted sunflower field. For the desired effects, Cyber created a rough, 15 lpi one-bit TIFF image to provide some texture to the background—a compilation of six photos created in Adobe Photoshop. It starts with a field of sunflowers on the bottom leading to a farm scene on the top.

The chips in the foreground were shot and separated in only three colors. Cyber has learned that cyan dot gain in flexo would make the chips look green and muddy. If the cyan is holding any detail, it is transferred to the black plate; by dropping the cyan plate, Cyber was able to add another spot color.

Proofs with pop

Although GMG ColorProof is often used for contract color, in this case it was used to provide accurate samples for design approval. GMG ColorProof minimizes Cyber's overhead and costs by creating accurate digital proofs using an affordable Epson 10600 inkjet printer that also allows fast turnarounds.

Cyber prides itself in maintaining and creating press profiles, allowing them to mimic how a process image will look when printed on press. Hot folders with profiles of the most commonly used presses are sent to the designers' desktops. Designers and the production department drop a file in a hot folder, get a good sense of final color, and can retouch appropriately.

For example, Cyber needed to assure the customer that one of the darker sunflower petals would retain its detail. Using GMG ColorProof, Cyber was able to generate an accurate designer's proof, using the profile of the intended flexo press at Bryce Corp. The fact that Bryce has many presses as well as many converting facilities gives Cyber the opportunity to use GMG ColorProof to successfully color manage the job from one press to another.

When the artwork was received by production, they faced a challenge in two areas of the background where the tint butts up to a diffusion TIFF image. Depending upon angle and screen percentage, there could be a moiré problem. With GMG DotProof, prepress manager Kevin Bourquin was able to create a one-bit TIFF file from the output RIP— proofing the job as it would be printed—by using GMG DotProof to reproduce the dot structure of the final file, assuring there was no "noise" or moiré in the design.

Bourquin also noticed that there was going to be a soft-edged drop shadow under the chips. Usually when there is a one-bit TIFF background and drop shadows, it creates some transparency. Although Cyber typically uses their workflow for all of the automatic trapping, they used Esko TrapX to manually trap the shadow to the chips. The vector-based trapping handles it better—melding a 300 dpi image against a 2400 dpi image.

Cyber also created another proof to assure complete accuracy for Martin's logo color. The customer sent ink sample drawdowns for ultimate spot color matching and approval. Cyber also uses those colors to measure the LAB values and create a custom spot color library within GMG ColorProof. Colors within the inkjet proofer's gamut provide an excellent match.

To assure the job would be satisfactory, Cyber finally created a product mockup, using white Chromacheck and a GMG inkjet proof. The design was reverse printed on polyethylene using white ink. The thin plastic could be laminated to metal foil. Cyber filled it with Styrofoam peanuts to see what it would look like in three dimensions.

Martin's was delighted with the results. In fact, Cyber has already designed the second, barbecue flavor. The blue banner has been replaced with a maroon red one. Cyber, with its vast experience, color-corrected the chip to give it a barbecued look. It's a classic case where production—and a good look at a proof—chips in to ensure a well-designed bag makes the customer happy.