Recently, decreasing offset commercial printing sales has become a trend in the printing industry. On the other hand, package printing has continued with relatively steady sales. Several styles exist for carrying out package printing, such as Gravure, Flexo, Silk as well as offset printing. In the field of commercial printing, the four-color process printing is the standard, and in the field of packaging, spot color is the standard. Toyo Ink has been working on color management and leading industrial standardization. For the past few years, Toyo Ink has tried to establish Gravure lamination film standards with focus on the standardization of the packaging field. The standardization of printing and a standard color for offset printing became popular in the Japanese industry by the ISO-based Japan Color 2011. Along with the management method, the evaluation tools have been established as well. However, setting a particular standard environment in the field of packaging is extremely difficult owing to the variety in the styles of printing spot colors being used. In process color printing, for controlling the color matching of a press output via CMYK process colors, it is crucial to maintain decent printing conditions to enable high-grade printing. Alternatively, for color matching of spot colors, the ink of the objective color is created by using base color inks before printing; hence, color management of the mixing ink process is of great importance. For the judgment of the spot color, colorings, and aesthetic evaluation, visual comparison is commonly used. The color management of spot color performed with package printing is analogous. There are certain reasons why spot color management is mainly analogous. PantoneLIVE is a tool to solve these problems, and enable digital color management in the field of packaging. PantoneLIVE is a cloud type database used for digital colorings of Pantone books. In the conventional book colorings, only one standard color existed. The idea of PantoneLIVE has two standards for each spot color; one called “Master standard” and other called “Dependent standard”. “Dependent standard” is a subset of the “Master standard”, defined according to the style of printing such that it is easier to perform color matching. Various tools are available for the simple and effective handling of the database in PantoneLIVE. To manage Pantone LIVE workflow, the purchase of a license to access the digital color library is required. Toyo Ink group acquired the PantoneLIVE AIM (Accredited Ink Manufacturer) certification from X-Rite/Pantone (U.S.A.), and are authorized to sell and support PantoneLIVE workflow. The Toyo Ink group will support customers in the digital color management of the packaging industry together with X-Rite Video JET, Japan.

This paper presents an overview of packaging market and flexographic plates/sleeves, while describing the characteristics of elastomer-based flexographic plates/sleeves in detail. Although package-printing markets are expected to continue steadily, in recent years, the overall printing market has continued to decline. Among several package-printing systems, flexographic printing is expected to grow in the domestic market as inks that contain minimum amount of alcohols can be used; water-based inks along with various printing substrates may be used in the printing system, which is especially applicable to the flexible packaging market needs. Generally, soft and elastic photopolymer-based plates/sleeves are used in flexographic printing. However, owing to technical innovation, elastomer-based plates/sleeves (rubberized plates/sleeves) are drawing attention in the market with modern direct laser engraving systems. Elastomer-based plates/sleeves have the characteristics necessary for high quality printing owing to continuous technical improvements.

There is no end to accidents occurring in ethical pharmaceutical, such as preparation error, misuse, and accidental ingestion. This has led to the introduction of improved medicinal product packages, as seen in current ethical pharmaceuticals. In terms of vials, translucent plastic overcaps have made it possible to confirm the name of the drug, and the specifications for pharmaceutical preparation are printed on the aluminum cap. In case of plastic bottles for tablets, if the name of the drug and specifications for pharmaceutical preparation are printed on a part of bottle cap, it is significantly useful when taking them out from a drawer. Individual packaging boxes with the name of the drug, specifications for pharmaceutical preparation, and precautions for use, when printed inside the flap, are useful for secure medical safety while playing the role of calling for attention. PTP packaging, those with “name of drug and specification” printed on all the pockets, have been introduced in the market. It is possible to print large amount of information on a PTP-packaging aluminum foil sheet with non-visible dot code without impairing the PTP package design. A wide range of application is expected for PTP packaging such as prevention of counterfeiting and traceability management in addition to utilization for universal design.

Food labeling is essential to consumers. Therefore, it is vital that the rules are easy to understand. As the needs of the consumer increases, obligation items for food labeling increase every year. However, as the number of small families increases, the displayable area becomes smaller, and the character size of the display must be kept small. Consequently, this is difficult to understand for aging consumers. The relationship between the size of characters on display and the number of obligation display items is crucial. In the future, matters necessary for ensuring safety (allergens, preservation methods, etc.) should be displayed with the highest priority. Other display items should be decided by introducing the concept of priority order. Displays that are easy for consumers to understand relate not only to the size of the items, but also to fonts, arrangements, contrasts, etc. Therefore, scientific research in this field is necessary.

Novel electrodes were fabricated on flexible substrates such as PET film using a silver spray method. After forming silver on the flexible substrate, a cross-cut test was conducted to confirm the adhesion property. We have confirmed that a twisting ball system was successfully operated using our electrodes.