We offer our own design solutions for shrinkable labels.
They take full advantage of the opportunities offered by rotogravure printing technology and our knowledge of how to use the shrinking process to produce the best results for our customers.

Shrinkable labels have many functions, combining tamper evidence, excellent product display, and protection of the contents and the container. This come together to offer vastly superior packaging in a host of industries.

Rotogravure printing is used by our company. This gives superior results on all kinds of shrinkable labels. Up to 8 colors may be applied together with nacreous, metallized, or fluorescent ink, or a matting effect if you prefer.

Rotogravure is the standard technique for printing on shrinkable PVC/PET labels. It is very rarely done with flexographic or offset roll presses because these technologies do not offer the kind of design advantages that rotogravure can. The difference is patently obvious even to the untrained eye.

You can hardly notice any raster on a rotogravure printed labels because the ink is more fluid and can be applied at higher densities. Thus, the perfect photographic quality of images is preserved, whilst the brightness and color saturation is enhanced giving the best quality printed image available.

Only rotogravure printing gives artists and designers truly boundless creative freedom. No other printing technique allows such smooth transitions - to "take away", as designers say. You can also print silver or gold, and get prefect reproduction of photographs and paintings.

This design flexibility combines with the excellent properties of shrinkable labels to produce a first class finished product in a distinctive container with the kind of shelf-appeal that you need to boost your sales volume

Design is not limited to flat images and text. Labels can be shrunk onto almost any shape of container so that the container itself becomes part of the whole brand image of your product. You can add your label to objects which could never hold a traditional stick on label, enhancing the product and adding value in the eyes of consumers. Turn an everyday object into movie, character or souvenir merchandise for pocket change.

Now, let's consider the economic factors which may influence your decision whether to use shrinkable labels or not.

Pre-print preparation for rotogravure printing is expensive. But the cylinder which used can produce up to 5 million rotations with no loss of image quality, compared to a few thousand with other technologies. Unfortunately laser-etched cylinders of the right quality cannot be obtained within Russia. They are expensive because they have to be imported. We plan to start manufacturing these cylinders in 2007, but in the meantime we use our expertise and knowledge of the market to source them at the best prices for our customers.

Manufacturers often produce a range of goods under the same brand for example shampoos and conditioners. In this case there are ways of reducing the cost of labeling. Firstly the can use the same colours on each label. It is possible to render almost any shade by using Cyan, Majenta, Yellow and Black (known as CMYK). In this case several labels can be printed side by side on the same cylinder, lowering the unit pre-press costs in proportion..

Another approach is the carefully design the label so that only one colour changes for each product. For example the text can be printed in a single colour. Each colour requires a separate cylinder to be made, and you can have up to 8 colours. But if only one colour changes between products in the range the other seven can be used across the whole range, dividing the cost between them. Only one cylinder needs to be made for any additional products added to the range in the future.

Say, you make five varieties of shampoo. You could need 20 cylinders to print a completely different label for each one. But if you only change the black text you can get what you want with three basic cylinders for Cyan, Magenta and Yellow and five black cylinders for each item in the range. Only eight are needed. The bottles do not even need to be the same colour because you can make any shade from the combination of the three primary colours..

This is how many western firms control the costs of their packaging. The key is that the consumer remembers the style of packaging associated with their chosen brand and is automatically drawn to other products in the range. The whole range can be made distinctive with the shape of the container or the use of bold graphics with each variation distinguished using colour.

There are other ways to reduce the cost of producing a striking appearance. For example you can print a normal paper label and then insert it into a transparent PVC sheath. The product gets the kind of elegant look that you normally need to use a UV glaze to achieve. The sheath will also protect the product from UV and other environmental threats.

Shrinkable label get its finished look only when it is finally inserted on your product. You are welcome to use other firms to design your labels and we will do our best to work with their designs. But you may need to change the design once you see the finished product in three dimensions, because it might not quite shrink as you expected it to. Clearly if you use our design services then any changes can be made immediately. If you use one company to do the whole process then there is only one company responsible if the result does not match your specification considerably reducing risk in the project. Many customers take great comfort in this.