Artwork and Prepress Production

Do you ever find yourself simply overwhelmed by the amount of email traffic and general communication you receive in just one day? How can packaging graphic management be this complicated? Our focus for this article is to explore why and look at reducing or even removing unnecessary task duplication, for which onerous e-mail traffic is just part of a much bigger picture.

Nowadays, everything we interact with, whether it be at work or at home, is expected to deliver a better, smarter and faster experience. When Brand owners or retailers launch a product or manage a re-brand it is no different – the optimum results are, quite rightly, expected.

So here’s how it normally works – a business will have their aims and objectives clearly in their sights, they know what they want, the vision is set, the associated team just needs to deliver it. The team is made up of subject matter experts who each know their own role and responsibilities within the process, but do they know when they are needed and what influencing factors might be impacting the project at any one time?

Packaging and artwork management has become a particularly complicated process in many large businesses.  Consumers and legislators have become more demanding for products and packaging that meet their expectations for quality, cost and social responsibility. In addition to this, revenue and margin can quickly dissipate as new buying patterns emerge and mature more quickly than ever before. As a result, retailers and brand owners require improved methods to run their packaging and artwork development processes if they are to reach their objectives.

The continuing fragmentation of consumer markets as a result of rapidly changing attitudes toward products and brands has forced companies to shift their approach to both product distribution and communications.

In a world where branding is everything, shelf-ready packaging (SRP) is finally undergoing a long overdue makeover. Not that long ago, the packaging that transported and delivered products was merely an afterthought. As such, little attention was paid to the fact that its role could be enhanced. It frequently obscured the product within, was awkward to open, looked unattractive and never told a brand story.