Printing calendars have always been in the realm of sheetfed offset process. Here the two companies with their combined know-how have displayed why flexo as a print process is a technology to reckon with.
This Sunday Column finds out how the calendar production was well put together
Flexo, a process long considered second to offset and gravure has made strident progress. DuPont, a formidable force in the flexo plate and platemaking technologies, has upped the ante. It has a long history of continuous innovation for flexo plates and platemaking systems to deliver high quality and high precision.
DuPont’s drive to push the flexo print process further made the company to explore printing its annual calendar using the technology it was far too familiar with. Two years, ago it collaborated with two of its long-term partners, Bengaluru-based companies – iTek Packz and Veepee Graphic Solutions, to produce calendars using flexography.
Flexo printing often forces many printers to adjust their processes in the pursuit of making the labels look polished. Zircon’s managing director Sanjeev Sondhi found a pre-press workflow with which his company could cleanly and accurately reproduce high-quality print demanded by its customers
Zircon is a multi-location label convertor with four plants operational and one under construction in Dehradun, Uttarakhand; one in Chennai; and another coming up in Mumbai. The label converter uses narrow-web flexo printing presses from Mark Andy, Omet and others.
Sanjeev Sondhi, managing director, Zircon Technologies, says flexo printing is an art. “If you print the job as you receive it, it becomes a routine mechanical task. When we add our touch using our expertise and skill, it results in a much-improved print. Most jobs we receive need this added touch,” he explains.