Plate mounting tapes for high quality ‘no label look’ printing

Packaging Solutions

The ability to adapt to market innovations and trends has always been key in the printing field, and narrow web label producers are currently facing an increased demand to supply premium looking transparent products.

tesa is meeting these market needs with a tailor made range of high performance plate mounting tapes for label printing applications.

The modern effect of transparent labels, which ensures that information looks as if it was directly printed on the packaging instead of on a label, is a growing demand for customers across multiple industries. A Smithers Pira report from May this year concluded that a ‘continuing major trend is to achieve a no-label look’ and that the label style is ‘spurring brands to invest in clean graphics that can stand out from the packaging’.

The perfect ‘no label look’ is achieved with a flexo printed clear on clear labelstock – mostly with a thin high clarity face material and a clear adhesive carried on a smooth film liner.

To ensure a brilliant print result, white inks have to be printed as a background to the actual design, ensuring high opacity of the final design and a smooth laydown of the different ink layers. tesa Softprint Hard is suitable for all flexo printers aiming to achieve an excellent print quality when printing solid backgrounds. The foam hardness of this 380 µm (15 mil) plate mounting tape provides optimal cushioning and resilience properties, resulting in optimised ink laydown even at very high press speeds.

Depending on the label motif printed in the second step, the comprehensive Softprint assortment offers optimal solutions for all design requirements in combination with different plates and materials in use.

In addition to offering the different foam hardness perfectly catering to individual design requirements, tesa offers a range of different adhesive lines within the plate mounting assortment: Softprint Steelmaster, Softprint Steelmaster TP, and Softprint Secure. So that the perfect solution for all requirements regarding mounting, printing, or demounting processes can be offered, meeting individual needs and conditions at a printer.

Richard Eeles, strategic segment manager print and web processing at tesa UK, said: ‘We offer the most advanced flexo print tape technologies designed to meet increasing requirements for fast mounting, high print quality, and demounting tape performance. We have been able to develop a wide range of product specifications with the consistency of performance that the industry demands.’