GHENT, Belgium—Global flexible packaging provider Elif has invested in Esko’s Equinox color management solution to enhance end-to-end optimization and achieve consistent, high-quality colors for brilliant printing results. With more than 45 years of experience in flexographic printing and one of the early adopters of hybrid printing technology, Elif has developed a highly regarded reputation with its leadership in developing and adopting new materials and technologies.
“To offer a fully integrated process from the brand owner’s design at the front end to the prepress and printing at the back end, Elif invested in Esko’s Equinox advanced color management solution,” said E. Murat Yalcin, design manager of Elif. “With a wider color gamut achieved with seven standard colors, Esko’s Equinox leverages Elif’s printing capabilities of flexographic printing and our World Star Award Winner hybrid printing solution ElifHybr to deliver cost-effective short-to-medium run flexible packaging.”
Elif chose Esko’s Equinox, which won a FTA Technical Innovation Award in 2014, to boost brand quality and consistency in a sustainable and efficient way. Equinox is a complete solution for extended gamut printing, allowing the conversion of spot colors to CMYK plus one, two or three additional inks. Depending on the print application and requirements of the brand owner, a CMYK fixed ink set can replace some or all of the spot colors. It also provides complete predictability on the gamut and accuracy that can be achieved with any ink set, allowing the optimal choice.
Converting packaging graphics from CMYK and spot colors to standard seven-color process with Equinox enables Elif to reportedly print more colors than available ink stations on the press, resulting in improved image quality, reduced production lead-time, economic savings and shorter press downtime during job changes.
Elif’s innovative approach aims to meet brand owner expectations with its advanced flexible packaging solutions. It prides itself on close customer relationships and a full understanding of the dynamics shaping the FMCG market, to deliver innovative packaging solutions with tangible business results.
“Today, brand owners need to offer a competitive advantage in delivering faster time to market, more customized packaging designs, standardized spot colors for product differentiation and brand identification. They also need to offer eco-friendly and sustainable packaging technologies and complex packaging operations with lower costs. The Esko Equinox advantage of an extended gamut color system provides the ideal blend of quality and an economical printing process that the major FMCG companies are looking for,” concluded Yalcin.