McDowell Label Goes Beyond Print to Earn Third Place in Best of Show

By Cory Francer

While it is a visually engaging label, featuring two separate foils, tactile doming and sharply printed text and graphics, these aspects of the Shadow-X label printed by McDowell Label are not what made McDowell’s VP of Technology, Jay Luft, most proud.

Instead, he explains that what stands out about this label is how McDowell was able to satisfy a customer located across the world.

This job was produced for a brand owner in New Zealand. While McDowell Label is headquartered in Plano, Texas, the company serves brand owners from around the world and on every continent. Communicating and interfacing with customers is paramount to understanding the needs and achieving brand success, so Luft explains the company does not see geography as a barrier.

He says that during the label development process, both sides discussed how the final label should look and the customer provided McDowell Label with a basic layout. But, the McDowell team was given the freedom to implement its own creativity to ensure the customer’s vision was realized.

“In the case of Shadow-X, they wanted the soft feel on the edges of the face, but they also have some very defined detail within the face structure,” Luft says. “Our team listens and even challenges the brand owner regarding how we would execute or approach the artwork to achieve their desired look.”

In addition to the crisply printed graphics and text, Luft says the special effects of tactile doming and foiling also created a unique visual experience in the way the label interacts with light and offers differing depth perception.

“We employed the tactile doming only in certain areas of the silver foil and not in other areas to offset and make the foil more brilliant, more reflective and create more depth,” Luft says. “This is going on a round container, so as your eyes move across this container, you get different light refraction and different depth perception by the use of the tactile dome.”

The label, which earned first place in the Labels-Combination Process category, was produced on a Gallus multi-process flexo press and featured a transparent foil, silver-backed foil, tactile doming and gloss and matte varnishes.

Click here for the full list of winning entries from the 2016 packagePRINTING Excellence Awards.