The innovative packaging for Farrah’s Multigrain wraps took out a Gold medal and was declared the Supreme Winner of the 2015 Pride in Print awards overall. The win has catapulted Farrah’s, printer Amcor Flexibles Asia Pacific and Brother Design to the top of New Zealand’s print industry, but it is on the supermarket aisles that the design is proving itself. The wrapper was designed to give the impression the food contents are placed on top of the actual wrap that you can see through the front of the food pouch. The brief Farrah’s gave Brother Design was to ensure its wraps stood out from the crowd.
Trends in printing and packaging evident at this year’s New Zealand Pride In Print Awards leaned towards “green” environmentally-friendly inks, innovative wrappings, striking labels and stunning window displays.
The awards showcase what is “hot” in the industry and one of the breakthroughs for companies with a strong environmental conscience is a new development in screen-printing inks. Boutique Whangarei printery Live to Print came up with the concept of a screen printing ink so environmentally-friendly that screen printing is presented in a new commercial light. Its Screeners Choice selection of vibrant colours have a commercial flow-on benefit in that they open up screen printing to companies who previously had not considered it for their products.
Senior Judge Angelique Sparnaay-Martin commented: “The natural plant-based inks are so completely environmentally-friendly, there are no alcohols, no toxins no odour, and no grease to deal with. The main users now are schools of fine arts but many companies keen to do screen printing have been put off in the past. They are environmentally-friendly firms and don’t want to use chemicals. Today, this product has given them a new choice.”
RFID label for bacon product
Designers and printers are also pushing technological boundaries. A label for Streaky Bacon, entered by Labels and Litho, featured an RFID tag as part of its design. Radio-frequency identification is the wireless use of electromagnetic fields to transfer data, for the purposes of automatically identifying and tracking tags attached to products.
RFID can also be coupled with sensors to help detect tampering with goods – something which, in these days of terrorist scares against infant formula, is of huge appeal to new parents who need the assurance they are buying “what is supposed to be in the packets”.
Innovation was evident in a series of cardboard wrappers for ice blocks made by Huhtamaki Henderson Ltd for boutique Paremoremo company Dr Feelgood. The inner coatings on the cardboard sleeves keep the product fresh and, most importantly, ice-cold.
Wine label grabs buyer’s attention
Wine labelling for supermarket attraction was a major area of attention in the awards with one set of labels rated world-class. The Brancott Estate World of Wearable Art Campaign wine labels carried off the Promotional Print category of the Awards with their extraordinary and classy finish featuring foiling and “high build” embossing, giving them a tactile feel to attract the eye and touch of the wine buyer.
Judges praised the crisp and clean approach to grab the buyer’s attention – “A wine label has to be eye-catching in order to have instant appeal to the customer. It is what makes them stop in the aisle, reach for the bottle and begin to browse. It is the label that gives the wine producer that competitive advantage in the marketplace.”
Senior Judge John Thorrat went further: “This is an outstanding label, state of the art. I for one don’t know who could match this, even on the world stage.”
