3 Spot Color Report

feel good vitamins

We randomly chose a product under several categories in GC 4060: Packaging and Specialty Printing. From the pile, I picked up vitamins under the healthcare group. From the product we picked up, we had to research and design a brand for our product. I chose to name my brand, Feel Good Vitamins. From there, there were many projects we had to print based on our brand. This project is based on the 3 spot color process. Read along and see my process in developing this project.

Art Considerations/Theme

My brand, Feel Good Vitamins, has a target audience of young people, like teens and adults ages 16-30, for all genders. When designing the informational label, I wanted it to be similar to my paperboard project, but it can’t be too similar where it looks like a copy and paste of it. I still wanted the sticker label to be simplified but still have all the information it needed.

Thumbnails

These were the thumbnails for my informational stickers. From my sketches, I wanted it to be similar to my paperboard box but have limited space due to the size of the dieline. I was also trying to figure out the order of the information and consider how I will place the label on the bottle.

Proof

For my first proof, I used the second design as that is what looked similar to my paperboard. When I got my critiques, it was too similar that it looked like a copy and paste design. I needed to deviate a little from my first proof but still fit into my branding. For my second, I added the stripes on the top and bottom to still have the colors I needed and put the icons from the paperboard to add more info. My critiques for those were the placement of the icons. For my final proof, I added all of the icons used from the paperboard and moved it under the supplement facts.

Prepress

For prepress, this would combine all three groupmates’ files into one file to output onto a plate. This was combined using Illustrator and artpro. This is the result of that.

Plate Making

  1. Back exposure
    1. Place in exposure unit with the back side (without peel) facing upward for 85 seconds
    2. Once done, take to CDI spark 2530 imager
  2. 2.1 Imaging
    1. Imprints image into the plate
    2. Peel side facing up; remove peel quickly
    3. Open cover of Imager
    4. When loading the plate into the drum, aline far left corner up to 30 mm
    5. Once lined up, use the wrench on the top right to open the clamp and rotate the drum so that it clamps the plate
    6. Turn on vacuum
    7. Rotate the drum slowly so that it picks up the plate
    8. Take the wrench and open the bottom right clamp so that it clamps all 4 corners
    9. Make sure there are no bubbles and that all 4 corners are clamped
    10. Close imager
  3. Go to the computer to set up the imaging
    1. Merger
      1. To put files into the merger, open RIP output, drag and drop each color separation into Merger
      2. Select one at a time and drag them onto plate; give yourself space around one another
      3. Click ‘other’ drop-down tab; select DFR 1.7 (067)
      4. Click ‘expose’ on the far right
      5. Title file and save; automatically saves into the exposure tab
    2. Exposure
      1. Set position to 30mm
      2. Hit start
      3. Runs for about 16 minutes; Make sure to check the plate every 5 minutes – make sure the light is green and the timer is still running
    3. View
      1. Uses LEN files created in ArtPro
  4. 2.2 Imaging
    1. Take the plate out using the same methods we placed it with
      1. Unclamp the plate and roll the drum so that the plate slides so you can see
    2. Close imaging unit
    3. Merger -> file ->remove all positioned items
    4. Go back to exposure and reset position so that the next person is set up
  5. Face exposure
    1. Take the plate out of the imager and place it back in the Cyrel Fast exposing unit with face facing up
    2. Select 6 to begin the exposure process. Exposes for 6 minutes
    3. Open the machine and take the plate to Cyrel Fast 1000 TD
  6. Thermal developing
    1. Uses heat to remove unexposed photopolymer on the plate that is not part of the image
    2. Hit F4 -> plate type will pop up -> hit the arrow, it will ask how many revolutions – 10 revolutions  -> click F4 again -> thickness – 30 inches > click F4
    3. F3 to open clamp -> slide plate in, make sure each corner has its own clamp -> click F3 to close
    4. Click F4 to start revolutions
    5. Takes about 12 minutes for 10 revolutions
    6. Once done, grab your plate.
    7. click F1 to acknowledge that you grabbed your plate
  7. Final exposure
    1. Place plate in top red drawer – face up
    2. Click 2, then 4
  8. Cut plates
    1. First, cut out the plates using scissors 
    2. Use the blade to trim off strips and cut each template
    3. Use a larger blade – on top and bottom: cut off at the very tip of the bearer bar

Make Ready

This was printed in black, teal, brown, and red. The substrate was on a continuous roll of paper. The plate was mounted on the plate cylinders and moved onto the press.

Press Work

The 3-color process was printed on the Comco. Unfortunatly, I was not able to run the press with my groupmates and had to do it by myself along with help by Max, the TA, due to a time conflict. For my run, I did not have red on my design, so I did not have a red ink tray (also the red plate was missing, assuming it was thrown away). Also, since this is second run with the plates, small parts of it were not completely clean. Small spots of ink would show in the print, but it’s not too noticable. It would show on the edges of text/art. Considering the run I did, the results were good. By the end of our run, we did the post-check of our inks to check their pH and Viscosity. For black, it took an average of 25.84 seconds for the ink to come out of the measuring tool and have a pH of 8.79. For Teal, it took an average of 16.60 seconds for the ink to come out of the measuring tool and have a pH of 9.19. For Brown, it took an average of 68.67 seconds for the ink to come out of the measuring tool and have a pH of 9.23. For red, it took an average of 18.30 seconds for the ink to come out of the measuring tool and have a pH of 9.31.

Quality Control & Anaylysis

My artwork looks close to the finishing results. A noticable difference would be the color of the brown. At the beginning of the semester, my chosen colors were teal, brown, and black. On digital, process colors, and inkjet, the brown color had always looked orange. When spot colors are used (opaque inks), that’s when the brown looked actually brown. The metering system influences the press run. At the beginning stage, after we put our plate cylinders on the press, I need to adjust the tightness to have even pressure from the ink, plate, then substrate. The metering system has ink, so if there was too much ink, it would overimpress, or too little, it would print inconsistently. There had to be enough gap from the metering system to the cylinder to print enough ink. I also had to adjust my registration of the plate cylinder based on the black plate. It took a lot of turning, but eventually got it right. A slight problem during my run was that when the plate had been impressed on the substrate, there is a slight dotted outline of black on the teal and brown plate. This is because this is the second run that these plates were used and the leftover ink from the first run was not clean throughly enough. The small black dotted outline is not too noticable where it looks jaring. Another slight issue was the text next to the icons. The font size is small and could have used a bolder font when creating in Illustrator. I would have tighten the screws to make the plate closer but I did not an overimpression to happen so I left it be. For my run alone with the plates being used a second time, it went pretty well.

Results