Lightning Labels Blog

Sony Announces Paper Thin TV Screen

Last week Sony announced that it has invented a flexible plastic display that bends like paper while showing full color video. Even though we are years away from this becoming a commercial product, it is truly an amazing breakthrough. You can see the video released by Sony (in Japanese) on YouTube.

The screen is a 2.5" display and amazingly only 0.3mm thick (about 0.01") and the video seems to be very high quality. You can easily see this leading to ever thinner cell phones, video iPods and other similar applications.

I also see the day in the not too distant future where you will be browsing the supermarket shelves and the "product labels" will actually be a TV screen on this kind of material. Right now, if you order product labels on our white BOPP with a gloss laminate then your labels are 0.0036" thick, slightly less than half the thickness of the plastic TV screen. So you can see that adding some adhesive to this plastic display and including a power source such as the paper batteries that are just around the corner, and you have a viable new kind of "product label" - the ultimate product sales tool.

Now, we have a lot of obstacles to overcome before this day arrives, but you can be sure this day will come and I expect to start seeing these on the shelves within 10 years. Of course, these "video labels" will be expensive but I also imagine a recycling program that will offset the cost to the consumer. You might spend $2 more for a product with the video label, but then you could send the label back to the manufacturer for a $1 coupon or something like that.

Here at Lightning Labels we like to be on the cutting edge of digital label technology. So even though these video labels are a long way off, when they become commercially available for product labels, we will be at the forefront.

Aussie Winery Using Numbered Wine Labels

On my recent trip to Australia one day my wife went out to get some wine for dinner, and she came back with a bottle of Polin & Polin Shiraz that was recommended by the clerk at the liquor store. Of course, I immediately looked closely at the label (as I always do with any product) and I noticed that they were using individually numbered wine labels.

So I decided to do a little investigating. I contacted Matthew Polin, one of the founders of the Polin & Polin Wines. They are a small family owned winery in a wine growing district northwest of Sydney. When I asked Matthew why he decided on going with individually numbered bottles he sited several reasons:
1. They wanted to emphasize that they are a low production, single vineyard winery.
2. Promotions to the members of the winery - they get a bottle corresponding to their member number.
3. To keep track of the bottles.

Now, numbering wine bottles is not a completely new idea, but there are still so few wineries doing it. An informal survey of my local liquor store revealed no wines with numbered labels. Today with the advanced digital label printing technology available this is very easy to do and not that much more expensive than regular labels. And it is a way to have your label stand out from the crowd. For a small winery like Polin & Polin I think it is a great idea, because it does give an exclusive and boutique feel to the wine.

By the way the Shiraz was truly outstanding, but unfortunately it is not available yet in this country. If you go down under, make sure you pick yourself up a bottle.

Some Help Choosing Colors

Choosing colors for your custom labels doesn't have to be a tedious process. There are plenty of online tools out there today that can help you choose just the right look. When creating your labels there is often a base color that you want to include - it might be the color of your logo, or a color that fits with the product you are selling. The question is what colors should you put with this base color? Take advantage of the rich color of digital label printing and choose something other than black or white.

Here is a brief review of some of the online tools that can help you choose color schemes for your products:

Kuler - developed by Adobe, Kuler allows you to create your own color schemes or you can see what other people are doing. Like many of these tools, Kuler will show you what are the most popular color schemes that have been created. When you register, you can vote on different people themes and the most popular ones rise to the top. I created the color scheme at the top of this post with Kuler using the color of the left hand column of this blog as the base color. Kuler then suggested some colors that match well with it.

COLOURlovers - this site describes itself as a resource that monitors and influences color trends. As the site suggests it is for people who are really passionate about color, in fact it calls the registered users of its site "lovers". COLOURlovers has a very useful search feature when you can type in keywords to search for color palettes. For example, if you have a lime flavored product you could type in "lime" and you will see all the color palettes that have been created with lime as part of the theme. Like Kuler, they feature the most popular colors as voted on by the sites "lovers", and they also feature new color trends that they see emerging.

ColorBlender - this site is a little different in that it lets you make tweaks to your color palette on the fly by just dragging a button across one of the Red, Green or Blue channels. ColorBlender does not make you register to use any of its features, and it does not focus on a community like Kuler and COLOURlovers. It is a simple, easy to use web site that will blend matching colors for you. You can even save your own blends for future use like the other sites. If you want a site that is very quick to master, ColorBlender is the site for you.

The beautiful thing about working with color these days is that there are so many tools available for you. These three web sites are all free and they provide a useful resource for anyone working with color. You can easily use these tool to help you match color for your products labels, your web site, or anywhere color is important.

Introducing an Environmentally Friendly Corn Based Material

After several weeks of testing here at Lightning Labels we are proud to annouce the introduction of a new material that is made from corn. EarthFirst PLA is a film material similar to our white BOPP material, but instead of being made from petroleum products it is made from corn. Our customers who participated in the test said they could not tell the difference between the two materials.

We are one of the first digital label printers in the country to offer this material for short run labels, but we firmly believe we need to offer environmentally friendly alternatives to our customers wherever possible. Not only is it made from corn, but less energy is required to manufacture EarthFirst PLA than other film materials.

EarthFirst PLA can be used in place of white BOPP, it has very similar properties. Combined with our high gloss laminate it is waterproof and oil-proof - I have had a test label on a container in my shower for six weeks now and it looks as good as new. So it will work well for bath and body labels, water bottle labels, nutraceutical labels and many other label applications.

You can order labels on this material now. We have added EarthFirst PLA to our Online Instant Quoter, and if you go there to get a label quote you will notice that the price is not that much more than our standard white BOPP. To give you an example, 1000 2" x 3.5" labels costs an additional $4.14.

We are proud to introduce an environmentally friendly alternative to the short run label market. Now, you can rely on labels that were produced from a completely renewable resource.

BusinessWeek Taking Notice of Mass Personalization

I am just back from a couple of weeks vacation in Australia. It was a very relaxing time, and I was able to catch up on a lot reading while I was away. One article that caught my eye was in the SmallBiz magazine from BusinessWeek discussing how many small businesses are using the internet to mass produce custom made products.

I have written before about the personalized packaging offerings from Heinz, Kleenex and Johnnie Walker and how these companies have set up special web sites so they could personalized their products. The BusinessWeek article featured five different companies who are also using the internet to mass produce personalized products. Unfortunately the article is not available online without a paid subscription, so I won't link to it, but I can give you my commentary on the main points of the article here.

All five of the companies featured here had simple web sites that allowed their customers to easily create their own unique and personalized product. These five companies are all small, so they don't have hundreds of thousands of dollars to create a sophisticated web site. But every one of them has said that this personalized offering is now the fastest growing segment of their business.

These five companies, like Heinz, Kleenex and Johnnie Walker, recognize that we are entering into a new era. The new generation of consumers belong to what I call the "Personalization Generation". They have grown up with the internet and the personalization that is available to them online through sites like Myspace and Facebook. They like their products to reflect their own personality and the companies that cater to these consumers by offering personalization with their products will have an advantage in the coming years.

So what to do? If you are already selling your product online, it can be a relatively simple step to offer personalized packaging of some sort. Here at Lightning Labels we can leverage our digital label printing expertise and help you get started with personalized product labels. You can start off by simply collecting names in a spreadsheet and when you are ready you can move forward to implementing personalization on your web site.

Consumer products are going to become more personalized. By starting now you will ensure you have a head start on your competitors.

We are Having an Anniversary Sale

In celebration of our five year anniversary, here at Lightning Labels we are having our first ever sale. Starting today, every order during the month of May will be discounted at 15% off our regular prices.

The way it will work is this. Our online quoter will not change, you will still get the same price as usual, but if your order is completed in May you will receive 15% off the total when we invoice your order. The details are on our web site - just click on the yellow starburst in the banner.

So order as many times as you like during the month of May, but don't want until the last minute. Your order has to be invoiced and shipped by May 31st for you to receive the discount. Keep in mind we get almost all of our orders out within 3 days of proof approval, but with the Memorial Day holiday weekend you will need to have your order approved by May 25th to be safe.

Thanks to all the loyal customers who have helped make the first five years at Lightning Labels a great success. We really appreciate your business and this is our way of saying thank you.