Flexographic printing has become the standard choice for packaging printing for the fast-moving consumer goods (fmcg) or consumer packaged goods (cpg) industry. Its popularity stems primarily from its ability to print high impact images onto non-porous substrates, such as all forms of plastics, laminated and multiwall papers and corrugated board.
The transfer of an image onto packaging with Flexographic printing requires a flexographic printing plate, and the process to create the image is called reprographics. In the early days, the images were not too refined, largely being limited to text and simple images, with minimal overprinting of colours. Examples of this would be signboards and in-store point of sale.
The growth of flexographic packaging can be traced to the time when packaging materials and designs became increasingly able to transport consumer products safely, hygienically, and aseptically over large distances and through various temperatures. Brand owners looked for ways to decorate their tubs, bottles, wrappers and tubes with eye-catching designs, and solutions were found in the improving print quality offered by flexographic printing presses.
Reprographics had to meet the needs of the new presses, and this was dramatically assisted with the arrival of computers, such as the Apple Mac, with graphic design capability. Coupled with this was software that enabled the separation of complex designs into different print colours. The ongoing development of new screening technology was a great benefit for reprographics businesses in terms of delivering flexo print performance excellence.
Reprographic has to meet the flexographic demands of very fine and subtle highlights, smooth vignette transitions, microcells giving smooth laydowns and controlled increased densities, and above all, absolutely consistency from plate to plate.
As the leading flexo reprographics service provider in Africa, Polyflex continues to invest in software, output devices and our staff to ensure industry-leading standards in reprographics and flexo platemaking.