Package Design - March 2012 - 26

The Morton package has been modernized through the years, but it still includes the two most prominent features of the original: the pouring spout and the dark blue label.

In other cultures, red can convey very different messages: In India, red is a color of purity; in China, it signi es good luck; and in South Africa, it’s a color of mourning. The art and science behind how color is used to convey messages and how these messages are interpreted is called color semiotics. This is such a powerful and complex tool that eight international universities have formed the group CREATE (Colour Research for European Advanced Technology Employment) to cultivate knowledge about printed color. Ph.D. student Maryam Mohammadzadeh Daroodi is researching color and communications as part of the CREATE project. She stresses that the messages color communicates are “signi cantly affected by parameters such as age, gender, culture and nationality”; thus, nding a color that means the same thing everywhere may be an exercise in futility. “It’s important to understand the cultural aspects,” she adds. “For example, white is dominantly used for wedding ceremony gowns in Western and some Eastern cultures, while red

GETTING THE COLOR RIGHT, EVERY TIME
Since the early 1940s, Heinz Beanz has been a British breakfast staple. Today, more than 1 million cans of Heinz Beanz are consumed in the U.K. daily. In addition to the familiar cans with the paper labels, Heinz has introduced new packaging for modern British lifestyles, including a resealable Fridge Pack that uses a gravure-printed shrink pack, and single-portion Snap Pots housed in a multi-pack, litho-printed carton. With each new package design, Heinz faced a new challenge. Different substrates and printing processes made it difﬁcult to achieve consistent color, and the layering of substrates exaggerated the differences. Reproduction of the Heinz turquoise across these different materials and processes was inconsistent— sometimes the trademark Heinz Beanz turquoise even looked like a greenish yellow. To understand why the color was shifting, Heinz worked with Pantone and branding agency Sun Branding Solutions to conduct a color audit of the Heinz Beanz color palette. Using X-Rite instruments—including the SpectroEye, a handheld, portable spectrophotometer that measures, monitors and controls special colors—the audit determined that Heinz paper labels appeared as a color match for shoppers the majority of the time. The challenge came with the ﬂexoand gravure-printed shrink ﬁlm and litho-printed carton board, where the allimportant turquoise was never within Heinz’s speciﬁcation. The problem was exacerbated at the point of sale, where individual cans are displayed alongside multipack versions. To gain consistency and control over its colors, Heinz moved to a new dynamic

Digital color tools help Heinz maintain color consistency for its Beanz brand, regardless of whether the ink is laid on paper or ﬁlm.

MARCH 2012

Package Design - March 2012

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Package Design - March 2012