During the webinar, Samarth Chandrashekar, manager – pre-sales and customer support from Esko, explained how the Esko Studio disrupts the traditional approach of getting customer approvals. “Anyone working with Adobe Illustrator will have the same ability to look at the artwork, modify it and then refresh it to get a 3D view of the artwork with Esko Studio. The tool enables the gathering of vital information about the job to help get quicker approvals from customers.”

The Esko Studio caters to applications such as corrugated boards, flexible pouches and cartons among others. It comprises an inbuilt material library to enable customers to select the most suitable substrates during their print finishing processes. It also provides an accurate calculation of shrink sleeves and warping and helps in the creation of enhanced packshots.

A case in point is how the software suite enabled Mumbai-based packaging specialist Mudra Digital Graphics to provide their customers with digitally rendered super-imposed images and stack them with customised backgrounds. The suite enabled the company to include specialised effects, creative 3D visuals for artworks and send packshots to customers with optimised features.

Esko's toolkit helps create and execute perfect shrink sleeves

Another such company is Mumbai-based Temple Packaging, which has experienced huge reductions in the time taken to prepare 3D mockups of jobs using Esko Studio as it enabled its operators to work directly in Adobe Illustrator to create and design 3D rendered drink cans, flexible pouches, cartons, boxes, shrink sleeves and share the designs with its customers.

The Esko WebCenter is a web-based packaging management and collaboration platform employed in the pre-production, specifications and approval processes in a project’s lifecycle. “WebCenter is a configurable web-based, collaborative solution to easily manage inputs to your business, which enables you to easily track and measure on-time delivery and quality,” said Chandrashekar.

Packaging major TCPL claimed that the Esko WebCenter has been their lifeline for facilitating processes right from marketing to post-production. Not only packaging companies, but also WebCenter has improved operations at pre-media houses such as Vakils, which deploys the digital platform for managing artworks, both creative and process management.

Further, Prakash Dharmani and Shrihari Rao of Essel Propack, an extensive user of Esko products, shared how the WebCenter has been an integral part of the lamitube specialist’s Essel Artwork Collaboration Tool (e-Act).

3D packaging innovations at Essel

Rao presented a range of packaging innovations at Essel to explain how 3D integration has helped the company to visualise the package better, facilitate print modelling processes and cut down the number channels involved in the job’s execution. Dharmani provided insights on e-Act’s journey including its workflows and integration with SAP and how it boosted the artwork approval processes. “We have implemented the use of Esko products across all our global facilities and we give credit to the Esko team for seamlessly imparting complete knowledge to us,” said Dharmani.

The next PrintWeek-Esko  webinar is scheduled on 3 November 2020 at 3pm.