A succesful decal design will be one that conveys the messages and ethos of your brand in the most cost effective way. Before your company embarks on a custom decal project, your design team should consider the technology available and the printing method that will best suit your project.
Where will your decals be used?
Indoor or outdoor? On boats or on office binders? On candles or on frozen food?
If you think your decals will be for light duty, indoor use only then you could actually save a fair bit of expense by having a paper label printed instead of a durable synthetic one.
How many do you need?
Is this a test run of 100 or do you need 25,000?
Often the answer to this question is enough to tell you how the job will be produced. Small quantities (short runs) will likely use digital technology which requires less set-up time. Larger flexographic printing presses are better suited for higher quantities as the initial labour and set up cost is offset by much cheaper materials costs.
The Pros and Cons of Digitally Printed Decals:
- Many digital presses are limited to printing on poly and vinyl material which costs a lot more per square inch than paper. The upside is that vinyl and poly is durable and will last much longer than a paper product.
- Ink colors are often achieved by blending percentages of CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow and black) which makes a very specific pantone spot color match not impossible but more difficult.
- CMYK printing offers the bonus of not having to pay for individual spot colors. Your design can be as colorful as you want for no extra fee.
- Digital presses use digital cutters that can cut any shape without the need for custom dies.
- The unit cost doesn’t change much as quantities increase.
Pros and Cons of Flexo Printing.
- Your unit cost will drop dramatically as your quantity increases.
- Premium options like embossing, roll rewind specifications and spot laminations are possible.
- Inks are water based which means they are less opaque and require a laminate protection if the decal will spend time outside.
- Custom shapes will require custom dies.
- Registration variance. This is usually in the range of 1/64th of an inch. Inks are printed one after the other using rubber plates. On a design where two colors need to align perfectly there may be a visible gap or overlap.
