Insights: Articles & Resources by Oliver Inc.
Why You Should Work With a Pantone-Certified Printing Partner
Pantone certification and its benefits at a glance:
- Pantone certification sets the highest standard. The gold standard in color accuracy, Pantone certification ensures your brand's signature hues pop consistently across all packaging and marketing materials.
- Packaging color delivers instant impact. Consumers make rapid decisions based on packaging design. Pantone-certified colors can be the difference between grabbing attention and losing sales.
- A rigorous process that makes all the difference. Certification involves intense color-matching, equipment calibration, and standardized procedures, transforming printers into true color experts.
- Your brand is going to outshine the rest. Partnering with a Pantone-certified supplier guarantees color consistency, saving time and money while solidifying your brand's visual identity in a competitive market.
Today’s consumers are making split-second decisions about what to buy based on packaging quality. Plain and simple: If the colors on your folding carton design are uninspiring, shoppers will immediately adjust their glance to another product that captures their attention.
Shoppers won’t give your product a chance—even if it is the superior option—if they’re not compelled by your packaging design.
Seasoned printing and packaging suppliers understand this. That’s why they invest so many resources into becoming Pantone certified. And industry-leading brands know to seek out Pantone-certified companies.
Pantone Certification Delivers the Highest Standard in Color
Color plays a critical role in bringing your brand to life.
Pantone Certification is the gold standard in the printing and packaging industry. Imagine a process that ensures every hue, tint, and shade of your brand's signature colors is reproduced with pinpoint accuracy across all your materials.
That's exactly what Pantone Certification delivers.
This rigorous program puts packaging suppliers through their paces, testing their color-matching prowess, scrutinizing their equipment, and evaluating their processes. For certified suppliers, it's a badge of honor that speaks volumes about their expertise and reliability.
It’s the assurance that the brand colors on your folding cartons and marketing collateral, whether in retail store aisles, online, or in consumers’ hands, will pop consistently.
Even the slightest color variation on secondary packaging and your folding cartons convey low quality. If your packaging isn’t the highest grade, then what does that signal to consumers about your products?
With regular audits and renewals, this certification isn't a one-and-done deal; it's an ongoing commitment to color excellence.
In a world where brand recognition can hinge on a specific shade (vital to private label products), Pantone Certification is more than just a technical process. It's a guarantee that your brand's visual identity is in expert hands.
How Printers Become Pantone Certified
The Pantone Certification process is a rigorous journey that separates the color connoisseurs from the novices. This isn't your average rubber-stamp approval; it's an intense, multi-step odyssey that pushes printing and packaging companies to their limits.
Picture this: A company embarks on the certification journey, starting with a comprehensive audit of its color management systems. Every piece of equipment, from printers to spectrophotometers, undergoes meticulous calibration.
Next, the team faces a battery of color-matching challenges that would make even the most seasoned artist sweat. They're tasked with reproducing a gauntlet of Pantone colors across various materials and printing methods.
The hues must be flawless whether printing digitally or using a more traditional printing method (offset and flexo). Whether it’s paperboard, post-consumer recycled timber products, or other sustainable substrates such as hemp, cotton, or casein protein, their final product must be without blemish.
Consider all the decorative effects that must withstand severe scrutiny, as well: embossing/debossing, foil stamping, specialty laminates, coatings, and spot UV printing have to retain near-perfect color matching and quality.
But that's just the beginning.
The certification process delves deep into a company's standardized procedures, ensuring they have rock-solid protocols for color consistency. It's not just about matching colors once—it's about creating a repeatable, reliable process that delivers time and time again. The company's staff also undergoes rigorous training, transforming them into bona fide color experts.
The final hurdle? A series of on-site evaluations where Pantone's eagle-eyed inspectors scrutinize every aspect of the color reproduction process. Only those who demonstrate unwavering color accuracy and consistency earn the coveted Pantone Certified status.
For brands, partnering with a Pantone Certified printer or packager is like having a secret weapon in your marketing arsenal. It means your signature red will be exactly the same shade on your printed marketing collateral as it is on your primary and secondary product packaging, ensuring your brand's visual identity remains the same across all materials.
This level of color consistency is crucial. Your industry is competitive and saturated. Pantone certification gives your brand one more tool for differentiating.
Moreover, working with a Pantone Certified partner saves you time, money, and headaches. No more back-and-forth trying to get colors just right, or worse, discovering color inconsistencies after a big print run. With a certified partner, you can trust that your brand colors will be spot-on, every single time.
The Pantone Certification isn't just a fancy title. It's a testament to a printing and packaging supplier’s commitment to color excellence. For brands serious about maintaining a strong, consistent visual identity, choosing a Pantone Certified partner isn't just smart.
It's essential.
Partnering with a Pantone-Certified Packaging Supplier
Given how arduous it is to become a Pantone-certified printer, industry-leading packaging suppliers will let you know right away if they can deliver you exacting color matching.
Enter Oliver Inc.
At Oliver, we're proud of our Pantone Certification. In fact, we were the first printer to be certified under the Pantone Certification program. Our commitment to color excellence is just one facet of our comprehensive approach to printing and packaging solutions. As your end-to-end partner, we bring a wealth of experience and expertise to every project, ensuring a seamless journey from concept to completion.
After all, we bring more than 250 years of combined experience to the printing process.
Our human-centric approach sets us apart in an increasingly detached and impersonal digital world. We believe that behind every packaging project, there's a team of equally passionate brand stewards.
That's why we combine cutting-edge technology with good old-fashioned customer service (we say, “Yup!”). Our team of experts is always ready to listen, collaborate, and bring your ideas to life, adding a personal touch that algorithms simply can't match.
Choosing Oliver means partnering with a domestic supplier who understands the unique challenges and opportunities of the American market. As the largest independent supplier of custom paperboard packaging solutions, we have six facilities across the States.
So we’re always nearby. It makes visiting us at any point during your next packaging project that much easier.
Our local presence translates to quicker turnaround times, more responsive customer service, and the flexibility to adapt to your changing needs. We're not just a supplier; we're your neighbor, invested in your success and growth. Hey, we’re just as protective of your brand as we are our own.
In today's fast-paced market, where brand identity can make or break a product, settling for anything less than impeccable color matching is a risk not worth taking. With Oliver, you're choosing a partner who values precision, embraces innovation, and puts your brand's success at the forefront of everything we do.
Ready to elevate your brand's visual identity with a packaging partner who truly gets it? Let's talk. We're not just printing unblemished packaging—we're helping deliver your products one perfectly matched color at a time.
