Digitalisation and sustainability take precedence — Jury Week Day Two

The Jury Week continued with much enthusiasm. On Day Two, more than 200 samples were available for the jury members to examine.

The categories for the day were — Digital Printer of the Year; Digital Photo Album of the Year; Innovative Printer of the Year (Paper/Paperboard/Corrugated); Innovative Printer of the Year (PET, LDPE, HDPE, PVC, PP, PS, Metal/Glass); Label Printer of the Year, Packaging Converter of the Year (Paper Bag and Textile Boxes), and Pre-Media Company of the Year.

Apart from the quality samples on display, a highlight was the all-women jury that examined the samples across various parameters. The Jury for the day included Kavita Dalal, Krupa Sheth Kapadia, Mayuri Nikumbh, Priyanka Karyekar, Tasneem Vasi, and Yugandhara Dalvi.

Emerging trends
Among the interesting trends on Day Two, the Jury members were especially impressed with the samples in the Photo Album of the Year category, and rightly so. Until last year, the category was seen playing within the given limits – beautiful, glossy printing with life-like colour representation, post-press embellishments and usual binding. All these aspects are still there, but this year’s samples have achieved a sense of premiumisation never before seen in the category. Not just the albums themselves, the focus was also on the packaging of the albums. 

One album came with a literal attache bag. It contained the album. On the inside lid of the bag, there is a video screen playing the same images captured in the album. Talk about value addition. This year, the photo album samples have taken the concept of value addition to a whole new level. 

In the paper bag segment, a simple Kraft paper bag was elevated into a luxury item with intricate die-cutting on both sides of the bag plus the pasting of a mesh fabric on the side. 60,000 pieces of this premium and personalised bag were produced. 

A beautifully designed wedding invitation was produced using a variety of paperboard shapes and accurate die-cutting. It was printed with a high-embossed effect and gold foiling.

Among the label samples, the trend was holographic printing effect, followed by matte varnish, gold foiling and velvet finishing.

The digital revolution
Kavita Dalal is a business and content lead at Beyondesign. With over 12 years of experience, she has worked with Clap Global on design and content development and managed a team at 4004 Inc designing university sportswear. Kavita has created a range of design materials including logos, brand peripherals, and publications.

On how the pandemic affected digitalisation, Dalal said, “Most people moved to doing things digitally, and started exploring digitalisation a lot more. So, pre-media has become easier, more fun to be with, and more accurate.”

When asked what kind of problems the digital wave can fix, she said, “Digitalisation is there to stay for the future. It is a lot more qualitative, and it is going to thrive a lot more as far as the quality of the production is concerned. And of course, volume-wise, it is going to play a great role.”

“Other than that, I thought that the biodegradable inks and other sustainable innovations were great to see today.”

On sustainability
Krupa Sheth Kapadia, creative director at Stratedgy, is a designer, typographer, and educator with over 15 years in the industry. Her work spans various sectors including fashion, healthcare, automotive, and FMCG, with clients such as Nestle, Zandu, and Bagrry’s.

Her take on sustainability was that it is a bit overrated especially when it comes to printing and packaging. Kapadia said, “It’s not like if you don’t do digital printing, you’re using the most sustainable materials. It’s just that you’re printing a larger quantity. So, I don't think digitalisation has an impact on sustainability as such, because you’re printing smaller runs, but probably more frequently. So, the net result is more or less the same.”

She also said that the Indian consumer is not ready to pay the premium that comes with sustainability. Kapadia said, “Even as designers, when we try to innovate and try to do something, it adds a certain cost, and the consumer is not ready to pay the cost, and neither is the client. So, I feel like the Indian market is not entirely ready at a mass level for sustainable packaging.”

On digital, which was one of the highlights of the day, she said, “It is evolving as a quick way to produce materials and is also sometimes cost-effective. What I saw in digital printing is at par with, if not better, than what traditional printing is producing in terms of effects, embossing, metallic prints and inks, and spot UV — you aren’t able to make out what is digital and what is a traditional print process anymore.”

Priyanka Karyekar, creative director of communication design at Elephant Design, has worked with brands such as HUL, Marico, HDFC Bank, Godrej, and Garnier, and later collaborated with Britannia, Tata, Daawat, Nivea, and Hershey's at Elephant. Her work has been featured on Creative Gaga, Kulture Shop, and Indianama, and she is recognised as one of India's Top 30 Illustrators and a recipient of the Taxi Fabric Design Award.

In terms of sustainability, she said, “If you have to achieve that bigger goal, then there has to be ownership from everyone involved in the project.”

Innovations: Material and digital
Mayuri Nikumbh, head of design at Conran Design, is a design professional with over 20 years of experience, having worked with brands such as Abbott, Coca-Cola, and Microsoft. One of the samples that caught her eye was a sculpture of Mahatma Gandhi, made from corrugated board, a material generally considered low in value.

She said, “What was specifically interesting about this was that each layer is specifically cut and pasted together, so it is quite a bit of effort. A lot of manpower has gone into creating something like this, and it was really impressive in terms of a new material to play with. Besides that, I thought some of the books were very interesting in terms of the crafting and printing.”

Tasneem Vasi is the managing director at Ctrl M Print Management India and has worked with global brands such as Coca-Cola, General Mills, Colgate, Johnson & Johnson, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, and L’Oréal. She currently leads Ctrl M’s design studio, focusing on developing comprehensive retail design solutions across India. She is intrigued by evolving consumer behaviour trends and manages projects from design conception through to retail display.

On the samples she saw, Vasi said, “In terms of trends, I saw a lot of variety today — right from using metallics, sustainable paper, understanding the substrate beyond what was just designed are some of the things I saw today. Digital always impresses. Every year, I’ve felt that something is exciting and new to see. There’s never been a stagnation. Digital is being used innovatively, in ways that I have not seen before.”

Yugandhara Dalvi, senior creative director of communication design at Elephant Design, has worked with major brands like Paper Boat and Flipkart. The trends she observed in the samples on display were innovations in anti-counterfeit.

She said, “Digital printing, especially, is a very nice innovation in itself. The runs with digital printing are far less. Structurally, I saw some POSMs that were very well done. PET printing eliminated the need for glass. Exploration is endless. What I love about digital is that you can print a lot of colours in one go.”