Chemical Product Labels on a Quick Turnaround
Positive ID Labels are capable of printing all sorts of chemical product labels quickly, in any shape or size through a myriad of colours using our Jetrion 4900 Classic digital label printer. The printer is capable of printing full CMYK colour and white ink under or over the labels. It is equipped with a digital laser die cutting station meaning it can cut any label we can outline for it to cut.
Chemical Product Labels – who and why?
We were approached by a global chemical supplier, DOW Chemicals, to provide a short run of large (A4 size) chemical hazard labels. By emailing a photograph of the label requirement, taken from a barrel in the yard, Positive ID Labels in-house art studio were able to use their expertise and generate a viable copy ready for digital printing in a matter of minutes and start production using our single pass digital label printing press, the Jetrion 4900. Our in house design team took the poor quality photograph and set to work recreating the chemical product labels. Using Adobe Illustrator software, a new file was created to size. Text and graphics were created to duplicate the look of the chemical product label from the sameple provided. The warning logos and graphics are all held in our library and meet with GHS standards. Having completed the first draft artwork of the chemical labels, this was sent for proof approval to the customer within the hour. Approval to proceed was given quickly thanks to the expertise we have in house coupled with the desperate need by the customer to get the job done! As normal, the chemical product labels proof include all the details pertaining to the label specification: Size, material, adhesive, winding, quantity required per roll and many more. This gives the customer the peace of mind to know that what they are ordering will be what they receive and you can benefit from the same speed and service too! As the work was generated in house, all the artwork guidelines we work to was in place at the point of apprval. A couple of technical processes then needed to take place on our systems: Firstly, preflighting the file to ensure all quality standards and specifications were met, then processing the file for the printer to actually do the job – a process called the “RIP”. Not Rest in Peace, rather Raster Image Processing. But to put it another way, we RIP the file into four layers, a cyan layer, a magenta layer, a yellow layer and a black layer. These 4 images are then procesed by the four colour planes in the digital press.
The digital printing press has a number of benefits over traditional flexographic printing technology. It is an expensive piece of equipment but the flexibility it offers is remarkable. Because the digital press uses UV inkjet technology, there is no need for traditional printing plates to manufacture your chemical product labels. The press works in a similar fashion to a standard desktop bubble jet, aside from the fact that the print heads are 210mm wide for each colour. This means the Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black inks are showered onto the materials like a waterfall. The volumes of ink that can be delivered mean the material can pass at 20 metres per minute under the print heads. Chemical product labels can also be cut without the need for tooling thanks to the digital laser cutting equipment, this means we burn through the face material to the liner layer of your chemical product labels. If we can draw a shape, we can cut it from the feed material. This saves money in terms of cutting dies but also saves time as the production of your labels does not rely on the physical delivery of a new cutter from our cutter supplier. On top of the fact there is no need for plates to be made, your labels can be delivered within 3-5 days, depending on workload as opposed to 7-10 days for traditional flexographically printed chemical product labels labels. If you need work completing quickly, just give us a call on 01332 864895 or use the contact form below:
