In marketing circles, branding is king. Ensuring that products make a strong first impression on con-sumers is paramount, so it should be of no surprise that color management expectations from packaging firms are sky-high, while customer tolerance for color variation is plummeting. "The bar has been raised across all the brands that we deal with," Ted Biggs, VP of manufacturing at Minneapolis-based AWT Labels & Packaging, says. "There is a lot more knowledge about color management on the brand side. They are educated on color management and know what they can expect." Biggs states that AWT works closely with clients to keep expectations within an achievable level. He notes that strong communication with customers is key. "Maybe they want a Delta E of 1 on a certain substrate and it is just not something that we can hold consistently," Biggs says, citing a metric for understanding how the human eye perceives color difference. "We will talk it through and try to understand what they are really looking for," Biggs continues. "Typically, at the end of the day, you end up somewhere right around a Delta E of 2 to 2.5."
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