looking for some odd information

[designpartners]

Hi all,

I'm hoping some if ye fine folks can point me in the right direction.

I've been asked by our design team to see how we would go about producing high quality packaging mock-ups similar to something like an iphone case.


So, here what I'm looking for.

taking the image above as a starting point, it's basically a 1mm thick substrate (I believe foam core but I have to confirm) with a laminated/upholstered matt paper.

So I'm thinking we can
1. develop a flattened version of the outer paper laminate
2. print it with cut lines on self adhesive media. (or use spray mount)
3. fabricate a foam core box
4. upholster it to the box.

I'd also like to be able to "Spot Varnish" the logo for example - so imagine it's a matte print, and I want a gloss logo.

So I believe what I need is a tangential knife cutter and latex printer which can print gloss and matt on the same print BUT, that's $60k that I'm not going to spend right now.
so here's what I have...

an Epson 9900, a couple sharp scalpels, some V-grove, rabbit and straight edge cutters and a budget to go buy some media/basic supplies to test and time.. 

I'd like help on media choice - is there self adhesive papers available for LFP? what about a repositionable adhesive media? would I be better off with spray mount? 
how would I spot varnish? just paint it? mask it? what would I use for it?

any other hints, tips?
it's just for mockup, doesn't need to last, needs to be visually clean.

any advice appreciated!

James

 

[I.T. Supplies]

I believe we can assist you with some of these options.
Feel free to contact us directly by chat, phone or email.  We provide pricing and almost anything within the printing industry as far as printers, inks, media, office supplies, cutters, etc.

atlex.com
[email protected]

[Luca Ragogna]

I've done a lot of these types of mockups and I think you're over thinking it. You just need to print on whatever you happen to have in the printer, stick it to some chipboard with Super 77 and cut, fold, glue about a hundred times until your design team is somewhat happy with the design and you're ready to move on to a more finished prototype. At that point you should have a company in mind to print and produce this packaging, get them to do the final mockups for approval on the actual stock it's going to run on.

[designpartners]

Thanks for your replies,

Luca, you may be right! we do need to show these to our clients however who have pretty exacting standards, but certainly once we get through the concept phase we would looking to outsource to the vendor for final sign off models. I'll try the simple way and let you know how I get on!

Atlex, thanks for the reply, I'll be in touch!

James

[Luca Ragogna]

One more tip, print on the thinnest stock you have and score the folds. Thick paper tends to delaminate and bunch if it's too bulky in the folds.

[designpartners]

thanks for the tip Luca! I'll give it a try!

[a.lorge]

You can buy a reasonably capable cutting machine with optical alignment for printing and cutting for less than $300 (was 269.99 on amazon as of a few minutes ago).  Hopefully that link skips over the scrapbooking nonsense and gets right to the good stuff....    Also would be useful for simulating spot varnishing.  Just cut a mask and blast away with the glossy topcoat of your choice. 

[Ernst Dinkla]

You can buy a reasonably capable cutting machine with optical alignment for printing and cutting for less than $300 (was 269.99 on amazon as of a few minutes ago).  Hopefully that link skips over the scrapbooking nonsense and gets right to the good stuff....    Also would be useful for simulating spot varnishing.  Just cut a mask and blast away with the glossy topcoat of your choice. 

With good registration tabs you could get quite far with a Z3200 and extra gloss enhancer print runs + spot varnish image masks. Not on the really matte inkjet papers but that is not the usual stuff for boxes you describe either. I would start with a semi-matte paper instead. There is still a tangential sign cutter here of 100 cm wide that I used for similar tasks when I printed several mock-ups with the silkscreen process. No optical alignment but I used register tabs too on that machine. Made a register table for that roll cutter. Scoring by hand though. In prototype phase that usually is the faster route for cutting too if you at least add cutting and scoring lines in the print. The cutter was used for creating silkscreen masks for the spot varnish and glue print runs. Elaborate jobs in total then.

With the 9900 you could check some satin papers where the image gets a bit of gloss while the virgin paper stays matte. You might separate PK and MK in two print runs but not color so it will never be a true spot varnish. Another printer loaded with gloss enhancer is an option.

--
Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
December 2012, 500+ inkjet media white spectral plots.