Package Design - September 2012 - 27

By Patrick Henry

Dazzle
packaging concept work. M5 Extreme, a workout enhancer, comes in a split canister that lets users blend its two main ingredients according to their own requirements. Dan Lourenco, Cellucor’s director of branding communications, says that the mix-it-yourself option distinguishes M5 Extreme from other pre-workout formulas, which typically are pre-blended. The package divides into two separate canisters upon opening, and the label breaks at a perforation to facilitate the split. Adhesive holds the label sections firmly in place and preserves the alignment of the design. The result, Lourenco says, delivers the right combination of shelf appeal and container utility. place award in a Printing Excellence Competition sponsored by TLMI (Tag & Label Manufacturers Institute). McDowell Label used many of the same techniques to produce a label for Super HD, a Cellucor fat burner: rotary foils, crisp dots in the vignettes, rubber dome for feel and grip, and eight highly fluorescent colors specially manufactured to meet brand and lifecycle criteria.

Retail label showcase
A tour of any local GNC retail store indicates the breadth of the range of techniques being applied to product labeling for supplements and nutraceuticals. The package structures consist, for the most part, of stock jars, bottles and closures. All of the branding and marketing energy emanates from the labeling, which billboards the products as it discloses ingredients and other essential information. N.O.-Xplode, a performance enhancer from BSN, surrounds a red, screw-top jar with a film label that flashes what appear to be holographic highlights in the logotype and the top-and-bottom edging. It was the metallic, reflective touch that stayed when Gaspari Nutrition rebranded its muscle-mass builder, SizeOn, with a new name and a clean, almost clinical look. In contrast, Con-Crét’s Creatine Micro-Dosing supplement has the ambience of a construction site: a black-and-yellow label motif that is reproduced as alternating stripes in the wide cap, scuffed in the black to evoke the gruelingly hard work of bodybuilding. Label material is used generously on many of these packages. Often, the film enwraps almost the entire surface of the container. MRI’s NO2 Red Hemo Surge comes in a cylinder covered in crimson tones from the bottom of the jar to the flat top
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Booklet labels can be used to put coupons, rebate slips, warranty forms and material safety data sheets into end-users’ hands.
John McDowell, president of McDowell Label, says that the M5 labels he provided to Cellucor had to be designed to perforate in only one direction so that the branding graphics wouldn’t be harmed when the canisters were separated. High-definition UV printing on a 12-unit flexo press included two rotary foil stamps, one of which was a custom hologram. The label also features what McDowell calls a “rubber dome” tactile effect produced with a special coating on one unit of the press. Crisp dot screening and nine colors of ink were added to produce a label that not only created a one-of-a-kind look for M5, but also won a first-

Package Design - September 2012

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