EskoArtwork receives PIA InterTech Technology Award

EskoArtwork’s Studio Toolkit for Shrink Sleeves is the recipient of a 2011 Printing Industries of America InterTech Technology Award. Since 1978 the InterTech Technology Awards, sponsored by Printing Industries of America, have honored the development of technologies predicted to have a major impact on the graphic arts and related industries.

‘We are very pleased and honored that, once again, an EskoArtwork product has received an InterTech Award. And it is even more rewarding because Enfocus Switch – from a business unit of EskoArtwork – has also received an InterTech Technology Award this year,’ said Carsten Knudsen, EskoArtwork’s president and CEO. ‘However, most important to EskoArtwork is that these products have contributed to our customers' successes. In the case of EskoArtwork Studio Toolkit for Shrink Sleeves, it remedies a very significant pain point for many package printers.’

‘The judges immediately understood the innovations behind Studio Toolkit for Shrink Sleeves,’ commented Mark Bohan, vice president, technology and research, Printing Industries of America. ‘As one judge commented, “Have you ever tried to create shrink sleeves manually? It's a nightmare. Studio Toolkit for Shrink Sleeves offers a dramatic change to a process that has been done inefficiently for many years.” They were impressed with the math behind it, the ability to work well with asymmetrical packaging and the calculations to predict hue and color shift based on stretching.’

EskoArtwork's Studio Toolkit for Shrink Sleeves creates artwork for shrink sleeves (labels that are placed around a package or packages and shrunk around them during production). Designers and pre-press professionals can quickly create, test, analyze, communicate and produce designs with 3D visuals, without the need to conduct physical test runs.

Studio Toolkit for Shrink Sleeves accommodates asymmetrical shapes and multipacks, and works in 3D from start to finish. It also works with a wide variety of substrates, taking into consideration the specific shrinking properties of each. With Studio Toolkit for Shrink Sleeves, it is no longer necessary to manually create test films. The pre-distortion can handle much more complex cases, resulting in more creative designs on more sophisticated containers. The 3D images accurately predicting the end-result can be used to approve designs faster and cheaper than making and shipping mock-ups.

‘Before Studio Toolkit for Shrink Sleeves, we would take a material sample and create a grid on film, shrink wrap it on to the product, and then measure the distortion of the sleeve off the grid. Sometimes we got it right, and sometimes we didn't. When the distortion didn't work, we would have to redo the art and start from scratch. It wasn't unusual to do two to three test runs to get it right,’ recalled Greg Swindle, production manager, Total Quality Labels. ‘With Studio Toolkit for Shrink Sleeves, preparing art for shrink sleeves is not any more time consuming than preparing art for any other job. Shrink sleeve jobs now take us 2-3 hours, instead of 20-24 hours.’

‘Clients are giving us shorter and shorter deadlines to produce work for new product launches. So, within the time frame we have, Studio Toolkit for Shrink Sleeves helps us work more efficiently and optimize artwork more easily,’ said Matthieu Abiteboul, managing director, Ceisa Packaging, the first beta user of Studio Toolkit for Shrink Sleeves. ‘The 3-D artwork created by Studio Toolkit for Shrink Sleeves helps us explain to our customers why we suggest certain changes to artwork; modifying the placement of certain items. When we anticipate a problem, we show the original design and demonstrate an alternative solution. Usually, we can show new designs on the same day they have been requested, sending them electronically to the clients' desks. The design agency and marketing departments are always happy with the result, and understand why it is the best design for production. They are part of the process.’

Click here for more stories about EskoArtwork on L&L.com.