Technology and design behind this year's Christmas packaging
By: Lia Contesso
Submitted: 2012-01-10 03:43:31 | Word Count: 544
Santa Claus and the rest of gift-giving characters have passed, and with them millions of presents have arrived at the homes of Italians, all of them thoroughly wrapped and presented in different colors and shake, all with the objective of standing out underneath the Christmas tree.
If you have paid attention to the presents received this year, you are likely to have realized that some of the gifts came with a more original or unusual package. Whether it was the wrapping material, a pattern on the wrapping paper or even just a particular texture or a cloth, these presents have surely caught your eye, which is in the end what drives all the designers and producers of packaging and gift wrapping supplies.
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This Christmas has been pretty straightforward in what concerns packaging trends. Environmentally sustainable materials have come back, like it has been happening for some years now. Some fashion designers, architects and painters have teamed up with companies and nongovernmental organizations to create exclusive and original packaging supplies.
Whether or not your friends and family have followed the trends of this season, it has been possible to realize, just wandering and shopping around, how there are ever more options for gift wrapping. Boxes, bags, envelopes, and papers of all sizes are available today in a variety of color combinations and textures, but many of them have in common one thing that is unknown to most of us: that the printing technology behind them is in the majority of cases the same, and that it is an environmentally sustainable printing method.
Serigraphic printing has the advantage of being able to work on many different surfaces: stronger or lighter, in paper, cloth or plastic. In fact, it is used for the coloring and decoration of cardboard, cardboard boxes, paper and plastic bags and many types of paper sheets with different finishing, like those used in the production of catalogs and wrapping paper.
In addition to the printing technique and equipment, the importance of this method is on the ink, that needs to be flexible and adapt to the new materials and surfaces the packaging designers come up with every year. Such ink can be classified in three groups: water based, solvent or UV, depending on the surface to be covered and the needed or desired color intensity.
The latest trend, that has appeared this year and that is likely to create some serious competition to the mass packaging industry is that of the complete personalization of wrapping paper. This trend is not included in the do it yourself category since the ones producing the goods are professional firms. The difference here is that they follow the customer's indication and design to produce the good. Through this model, consumers provide the firm with a design or pattern that is the printed on the desired material. The price is of course higher than that of traditional wrapping paper, but the result is a professional-looking, original and exclusive packaging that will confer a unique look to all the presents you ever give.
