The Key to Lenticular - Keep it Simple

EVEN THE MOST seasoned marketing guru has most likely been stopped in his or her tracks by the sight of some of the incredible lenticular print jobs out there on the shelves. "Oohs!" and "Aahs!" can be heard in an aisle that holds a product packaged in this eye-catching manner. But there's a lot a printer needs to know about lenticular products to achieve the right look within the right budget—and keeping the design simple is the best place to start.

Keep it simple

Let's start from the very beginning. Lenticular images are digital files that are printed onto a plastic material made up of a series of lenses (lenticules). What makes this process so appealing to packaging is that the digital files are specially prepared and printed onto the lenticular substrate in such a way that it looks like the image is moving, or in the case of 2D or 3D, that the piece has depth.

There are several kinds of effects that lenticular prints can produce, some with movement and some with no movement at all. Which you choose, or which your customer chooses, will determine how the piece is printed. For instance, according to the World Holographics Inc. Web page, to produce the illusion of depth, the lenses should be run vertically relative to the image. To produce motion, the lenses will be run in a horizontal direction.

According to Mike Maguire, CEO of Structural Graphics, the objective of lenticular is to capture the full attention of a customer. How this is all accomplished, said Maguire, is to keep it simple, and to make sure the lenticular image becomes part of the entire packaging, and not just something that is added on as an afterthought.

"We see lenticular materials used as gimmicky add-ons to packaging and that is really not the correct way to use it. The lenticular image needs to be integrated into the the packaging. It can't look 'last minute' or like an afterthought," said Maguire. "You don't want it fighting with the rest of the product. In my opinion, the simplest designs are the most effective; the basics work best."

Some of his favorite examples of lenticular, he said, have only a two-way effect, either left-to-right or up-and-down. "For point of sale [POS]," he explained, "it's best to have these two-way effects, and it's best to use the up-and-down effect."

Maguire says that the up-and-down movement works best for POS lenticular materials primarily because of how our eyes are positioned. Because our eyes are horizontally located on the face, a left-to-right motion sometimes can become distorted—not at all good when a package has only a fraction of a second to catch the quick-moving eye of a busy and overwhelmed consumer.

Understand costs and benefits

Before one jumps into the use of lenticular printing, however, the expense of using this kind of packaging over other substrates, such as folding cartons, needs to be understood. "This calls for a serious consideration of the product value (you cannot use lenticular to pack low-priced products), and the value added to the marketing of the product by the use of the lenticular," said Amir Varesh, vice president marketing and business development, HumanEyes Technology Ltd. "Therefore, lenticular packaging may only be feasible when it is a luxury product, such as in certain spirits, cosmetics, watches, and toys."

But that doesn't mean that the cost of lenticular should keep designers from using it. "A way to overcome the cost issue is to integrate a smaller lenticular print into a carton packaging," he offered.

"In a case where the packaging has a significant role in helping a consumer to reach a decision to prefer a certain product over others—and the product cost structure can allow for this additional cost—then the brand owner can only benefit from using lenticular, thus giving additional impact to the product packaging," Veresh said.

The additional cost of using lenticular images will put more pressure on a printer to make sure the product meets the highest quality standards. To help achieve the desired result, there are some practical considerations that can help.

"You want to show great contrast in the movements. You don't want any ghosting of one image into another," Maguire said. Ghosting, he said, can be defined as one "dimension" of a lenticular movement showing up in the next movement. This problem can be combatted by designing simple images with only a few phases, so there's less of a chance that ghosting will occur.

Also, according to Veresh, "Printers must take good care to provide perfect alignment between the image and the lenticular, good screening to avoid moire, control dot gain, color management, and to have a good white background." In addition, the size of the product and its packaging, the viewing distance, and type of package are all important factors, he notes.

But it's not all work and no play; there are real advantages by having lenticular on packaging. "Lenticular printing is a good way for brand owners to differentiate and to stand out in a crowd," says Veresh. "It also helps consumers to create a different and more positive attitude toward a certain product."

by Megan Wolf

Assistant Editor