Evolving Technology Has Changed The Process, But Not The Purpose Of Quality Prepress. Throughout my professional career in the Premedia industry, I’ve been amazed by the rapid evolution of prepress services, especially within the flexographic sector.
Evolving Technology Has Changed The Process, But Not The Purpose Of Quality Prepress
Throughout my professional career in the Premedia industry, I’ve been amazed by the rapid evolution of prepress services, especially within the flexographic sector. Technological advancements have undoubtedly streamlined processes, yet they’ve also blurred the lines between roles and responsibilities. However, one constant remains: the critical importance of the brands color consistency across both retail and digital shelves, and the careful management of this across various touch-points and print disciplines.
When I entered the packaging printing industry in the early ’90s, prepress was still a tradesman’s craft. Fresh out of college, I witnessed desktop publishing revolutionize the field, quickly replacing light table film separations with digital output. The Apple Macintosh, Mac OS, and Adobe software became the go-to tools. Flexography, though in its early stages, evolved rapidly. While initially faster and cheaper, its quality improved over time thanks to advancements in presses, anilox, photopolymer, and imaging techniques, allowing flexo to gain significant ground in the market.
The digital revolution pushed further, eliminating film output altogether and rendering table separations obsolete. Computer-to-plate (CTP) technology became the standard. As trade shops adapted to the digital era and worked upstream with their design partners, and platemaking became more straightforward with fewer steps, the print industry began to bring platemaking in-house. However, they soon realized that the complexity of platemaking extended beyond the plate room to include prepress treatments, color management, and screening applications. As a result, they still heavily relied on the expertise and skills of their prepress partners or needed to incorporate graphic services into their operations to keep their presses running and maintain their commercial models.
The key question is: Do you have someone you can rely on to handle the rigors of a demanding prepress process?
With so many variables to manage, the question ultimately boils down to trust. As a Consumer-Packaged Goods (CPG) company, who do you partner with to protect your brand and design intent? Who do you trust to bring your brands to life on shelf, ensuring consistent execution across all your print supply chain partners? And who stands up for the critical brand equities that are pivotal to your consumers’ buying decisions?
For more than 100 years, our purpose and our passion has been bringing out the best in brands. If you’re interested in a Premedia partner obsessed with quality and fanatical about managing the devil in the details, I invite you to give us a call.