Custom Label Printing Capabilities
For over 25 years, Consolidated Label has been manufacturing the highest-quality custom printed labels. We've printed billions of labels for a host of markets and applications—innovating new printing techniques along the way—so you always get the label look you want for the right price.
Our printing methods include Flexographic printing and Digital printing. Both printing methods produce high-quality labels, and their combined capabilities allow us to create a large variety of label styles.
Flexographic Printing vs Digital Printing
Flexographic Printing
Flexographic label printing is ideal for larger runs of custom printed labels. This printing method affords a wide assortment of materials and technical capabilities. For instance, we can produce pressure-sensitive labels, shrink sleeve films, and holographic labels all on the same flexographic press.
The key difference between flexographic printing and digital printing is that flexographic printing uses printing plates to transfer the inks onto your labels. Because of this, flexographic presses require initial setup costs in preparing artwork, plate-making, and registering of the printing plates when setting up your labels on press.
- Large Quantities
Flexographic printing is optimum for high volume orders. After the initial setup costs, which include creating printing plates, flexographic becomes more cost-effective with the more you print. - Speed
Our flexographic presses typically run several hundred feet of material per minute once set up to run a specific label. Setting up a flexographic press can result in a lot of the production time and material waste. In some cases, the set up time for a job on a flexographic press can take several hours. The big advantage to flexographic press is that once a job is set up on the press, it can be run very quickly relative to the speed of running a label job on a digital press. - 10-Color Capability
We use the standard four color process of cyan, magenta, yellow and black colored inks. However, our presses are capable of six additional ink stations to be used for multiple variations of any single color, spot colors, specialized inks, underprinting, or even laminate coatings. - Diverse Materials
Flexographic printing allows for a wide range of materials, from paper, plastic or vinyl films, metal foils, as well as metalized paper and metalized film materials. This makes holographic, rainbow and other special materials available options. - Complex Processes
Cold-foiling, silk-screening and embossing are all possible with flexographic printing. The technical capabilities of our flexographic presses are easily modified to meet the needs for many different label projects. - Diverse Products
Flexographic printing accommodates a diverse range of label products. For example, we offer coupon label printing, respositionable labels, removable labels and multi-layer labels. We also grant the option to have your product labels delivered on rolls or sheets.
Digital Printing
Digitally printed labels are vibrant, high-quality labels. We use only the best digital presses designed precisely for label manufacture, which guarantee the best in quality and consistency.
The set up costs for flexographic labels can be expensive for a smaller company, or if only a small quantity of product labels are desired. This is where digitally printed labels will have the advantage over flexographically printed labels.
- Small Quantities
This cost benefit is maximized for relatively small quantities of custom labels or "short run labels." For instance, you could order 500 of one label design, or 100 of five different label designs for the same price. - Lower Setup Costs
Because no printing plates are required, there are less set up costs associated with digitally printed labels. - Quick Turnaround
No plates bypasses a lot of the requirements needed for flexographic printing, such as plate-making. This means a shorter setup time, so the process between ordering and printing is made much faster. - High Resolution
Our digital presses print at very high resolution so your labels will have crisp clear images and life-like colors. Now you can capture desired color effects such as gradient fades from 100% to 0% without any color dropout. - Variable Data
With digital label printing, you can print 1,000 custom labels and each label can contain different information. This is known as variable data printing. Variable data printing opens up great new creative possibilities for your custom labels: you can add names from a database, consecutive numbers, multiple barcodes, or even print multiple versions of the same label! - Multiple Labels
The cost of ordering different label designs can often be prohibitive due to plate charges and some setup fees associated with high-volume printing. Digital label printing circumvents these charges, therefore allowing affordable design flexibility in creating labels for a line of different products, frequently changing artwork or market tests. - Startup and Small Companies
Printing low-volume is a safe choice for small and startup companies who may anticipate future changes in their artwork, or who wish to target separate markets with different label designs. With digital, you may buy only what you need with no obligation towards setup costs or having to buy in bulk to reach an optimum price.
