Success by Design

Printing challenges

Schroeder cites two significant printing challenges for this project. First, the boxes use a very high level of metallic inks to provide 100 percent coverage. Metallic inks are difficult to print because of the large particle size in the inks. Great Northern also had to come up with something that would have a high rub resistance. The company worked with its coating vendors to run a variety of machine trials to come up with the right recipe. The need for the high rub resistance has to do with the embossed areas of the carton. "Not only is this going to have some pretty heavy-duty use in the rest room, but if you look at the bottom of the box, you have embossed bumps sticking up," says Schroeder. "If you slide those back and forth, they are real susceptible to abrasion. So coming up with a really high rub-resistant coating was a challenge."