Packaging color application and form rules

Packaging design process

When our design work is approved by customers, it must be copied through printing and other processes. The packaging design, like other industrial designs, is subject to different process conditions. For packaging, the biggest constraint is printing. A good design proposal must adopt the appropriate process conditions to achieve the desired results. Therefore, for a packaging designer, it is not enough to master the general design rules and application software. For some printing processes and Principles We must not only know that we must learn to use it and that the design is in line with production. We must limit our ability to express ourselves under limited technological conditions, so that we do not exceed the technological conditions, but also facilitate the plate printing, reduce the number of printing labor, and save Versions, shortened working hours, and at the same time achieving ideal results, it also saves production costs. On the contrary, if we do not understand these technological conditions, the first is that our hard work results cannot be realized perfectly, and it is difficult to make plate printing. The “masterpieces” that we have elaborately designed are ultimately useless garbage, which has caused problems for both the producers and the country. It is necessary to waste. Instead, it also affected production.

First, scanning and electronic color separation

When we are doing creative work, we can't use original materials for all materials. Many material quality can be obtained by shooting, copying originals, etc. Since there are so many types of manuscripts at the time of platemaking, the positive ones (also known as reversal films, generally 120 majority), Negatives (that is, the negatives I used to take pictures, are often used are 135 negatives) prints, photos and so on. According to the principle of lightening during separation, we can divide the manuscript into two types, reflective and transmissive.

The original is impenetrable. We call it a reflection draft. In color separation, when the light source illuminates the original, it will be reflected back, and the reflection and scanning separation will be performed using the principle that different colors reflect light. Reflections include photos, prints, hand-drawn drafts, and other pictures. The original of the transmitted manuscript is transparent, and is illuminated on the back of the manuscript by a light source, and the transmitted light is used for imaging calculation. The positives, negatives, etc. mentioned above are all transmissive.

1.1 Scanning

Scanning is the most common color separation method. It mainly uses digital processing methods to perform RGB color separation processing on reflective drafts and transmitted texts, and then converts them into CMYK patterns for printing by software. General scanners have their own image processing system, and some can be directly obtained CMYK mode, but the author sees, or first describe RGB and then use Photoshop processing, because the scanner comes with an image processing system, or no Photoshop professional .

Common scanners are generally CCD flatbed scanners. A CCD (Charged Coupled Device) is a charge coupled device. It is a component of the scanner head. When scanning, it emits a bright light beam to the object being scanned, and the photocell of the head. The detection will automatically analyze the RGB components of the CCD light, and reflect the information according to the brightness of the image to generate the corresponding high and low voltages. This information will be digitized and eventually saved to our hard drive. When scanning, a resolution of 300 lines is generally sufficient. Too large is useless, but it also occupies hard disk space.

1.2 Electricity points

Electricity is the electronic separation. If the image quality requirements are relatively high, the originals should be subject to electrical separation. Electrical separation is the fastest and accurate color separation method. The principle is to attach the original to the cylinder of the electronic colorimeter and scan through the photomultiplier tube (PMT). When the instrument is rotated, the pixels of the image are individually Extract color separation, and replace the optical signal with the analog telecommunication signal corresponding to it, correct the signal with an electronic circuit, and finally restore the corrected electrical signal to an optical signal to perform the desired point-by-point exposure. Separation image input computer. The color of the image obtained by the electricity is very accurate, and the original original can be restored almost perfectly.

Second, the printing process

As we have said before, after our works are approved by our customers, we will eventually make a lot of copies through printing. Therefore, we must be familiar with the printing process so that our design scheme can meet the final process conditions. Printing can be divided into letterpress printing, gravure printing, offset printing, screen printing, and the like.

2.1 Letterpress Printing

The principle of letterpress printing is like stamping. There are text and image parts that rise upward. No part of the image is recessed. Then the raised part is colored and printed directly on paper. At least 30 kg is required for printing. The pressure of cm2. Due to the high pressure during printing, the printed ink is thick and the text and lines are clear and colorful. However, plate making by letterpress printing is more difficult, and the uniformity of oil ink is also difficult to grasp when coloring. The printed sheets should not be too large. It is best not to open four sheets, and with the increase in the number of printing, the layout will continue to wear out, so that the number of printing is greatly limited.

Toppan printing is suitable for some tags, covers, envelopes, stationery, labels, invitations, and so on.

When designing, the following points should be noted:

1, the color should not be too much, generally 3-4 color is appropriate.
2, using the performance of ink and paper to enhance the artistic expression, such as printing gold, hot silver, pressure drum.

2.2 Gravure Printing

The concave printed text and image are immersed under the layout. No text and image are smooth. Then the recessed portion is filled with ink, and the ink in the text and image portions is wiped clean and then printed on the paper.

The gravure printing is divided into two kinds of engraving gravure and photo printing plates. Gravure printing has the advantages of thick ink color, rich layers, and strong color expression. Mostly used for banknotes, securities, stocks, stamps, high-quality pictorials, etc. The printing quality is good, the number of prints is much faster, and it is a very good printing method.

2.3 Lithography

Lithographic printing, also known as offset printing, is indirect printing and has evolved from early lithographic printing. The lithographic pattern texts and the non-patterned texts do not have concave and convex curvatures and are on a single plane. It uses the principle of water and oil incompatibility to attach a layer of oily oil film to the patterned part, and no text and pattern absorb water to form an anti-ink effect.

In terms of coloring, lithography is basically not subject to any restrictions, and the ever-changing colors can be overprinted by CMYK (CYAN Blue, MAGNHA Magenta, YELLOW Yellow, BLACK Black). Lithography Plate making is simple, low cost, and good quality, suitable for large Batch printing. It is commonly used in the printing of books, magazines, posters, packaging, etc.

2.4 Screen Printing

Screen printing, also known as stencil printing, consists of silk, metal and synthetic materials such as screens, wax paper, etc., which prints the pattern and text. Then scrape with a squeegee, the ink through the hole in the hollow part, printed on the substrate.

Screen printing is easy to operate, thick ink, colorful, suitable for a variety of printed materials. It is often used for the printing of advertising banners, stickers and other printed materials.