The Benefits of 7-Color Printing for Labels

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that color is crucial for packaging, but it may be even more important than you expect. The right use of colors is a signal to buyers about your brand’s personality. There’s also the fact that 90 percent of consumers make snap judgments about products solely based on their color. Your product labels communicate with buyers before people even read any of the words, so it’s imperative that they look great for that important first impression.

Unfortunately, your perfect color scheme may not make the impact you want without the right color printing process. Certain printers may not have the technology or range of inks to recreate your specific colors. Fortunately, 7-color process labels allow you to avoid many of these issues without having to pay extra for spot colors. Here’s how.

A digital printing machine making 7-color process labels.

7-Color Label Printing Gives You Access to More Colors

Digital printing uses four base colors, also known as CMYK – cyan, magenta, yellow, and black (key). These original four colors can only account for 55 percent of the Pantone Matching System (PMS) colors. That’s not a comforting number if you’re set on a specific hue, which is why the 7-color process adds violet and orange or green to the original four. These extra three ink colors allow printers to achieve up to 98 percent of the Pantone spectrum.

7-Color Label Printing Makes Your Colors Look More Vibrant

Another advantage of the 7-color process is that it gives you access to Extended Gamut color formulas. Essentially, this means that you have access to colors that are cleaner, brighter, and more saturated than what you may be able to achieve through the standard 4-color process. This is very important for if you want that extra-vibrant green, purple, or some other shade to really pop on your label without having to spend extra on spot colors.

7-Color Label Printing is Digital

Since the 7-color process is done digitally, it means that you can still take advantage of all the benefits of digital printing while improving your color options. Not only does 7-color printing allow you to achieve more vibrant labels, you can also get them quicker than you would with printing methods that require plates. That lack of plates means no setup and better turnaround times for label proof or finished products. Digital color printing also gives you additional flexibility for your orders, whether you only want to commit to a smaller run or want to combine multiple SKUs into a single order.

Multiple custom 7-color process labels on a table.

Make Your Labels Stand Out Through 7-Color Printing

You should never have to settle for bland colors that don’t fit your brand. Thanks to our investment in the 7-color process and state-of-the-art digital printing technology, Blue Label can work with you to make sure your labels look just right for your products. Contact us today to talk to one of our experts about you next label project.

Label Consistency

Designing a good label is hard. It takes a good concept, an understanding of the technical applications, a good designer, and a printer that can get it all right. But here’s the scary thing, even if you do everything right to create a great label, you could still end up with boxes full of useless packaging. Why? Consistency. Just because a label was right one time doesn’t mean it will be the next. Really, you might be thinking, in the age of the iPhone and Netflix, printers still haven’t figured out how to make labels look the same every time? Well, the answer to that is that some have and some haven’t, and you need to be able to tell the difference. The difference is the process they are using to create the label. Flexographic is an analog process that requires a lot of judgment and ‘eyeballing’ whereas digital printing is, well, digital. Here are the main areas digital printing can help maintain label consistency:

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