Digital Substrate Offerings Expand

As the digital printing market expands its reach, paper manufacturers are refining and expanding their digital substrate offerings.

The move to shorter print runs, variable printing, and the ongoing need to have their product stand out have marketers clamoring for a broad range of papers in varying weights, sizes, colors, and textures.

Leading paper companies, such as Mohawk, Neenah, and Sappi are responding to customer requirements for substrates that are of similar quality and breadth to their offset offerings.

“Digital is not just about low cost; in fact, it’s quite the contrary now,” said Greg Maze, Senior Brand Manager, Neenah Paper. “Smaller jobs are even more exclusive. Our papers lend themselves to where brand and quality matter—a college using a direct mail piece to entice a student, a corporate entity to demonstrate their product is above the others.

“How do you stand out in the three-to-five seconds the consumers spends looking at products on the shelf if you are one of many—you do it with texture and color,” he added.

“As we work with {digital printer} OEMs, which is how we gauge what we need to move forward with our digital portfolio platform, we find a demand for heavier substrates that will accept varying degrees of texture, and very dark colors, such as browns, blues, and blacks to work with digital printers’ new white ink technology,” said Maze.

“OEMs recognize that the broader range of substrates their press can run, the more presses and more ink they can sell,” said Maze. “It’s a race to provide a broader category of substrates that will entice the PSPs to buy the press.”

Konica Minolta, Ricoh, HP—all the OEMs are adding white ink to their capabilities, he added. Kodak NexPress has its Gold Dry Ink. “We do colors and textures very well; that’s our strong suit,” said Maze. “We have broad capabilities in that area.”

Print is enjoying new relevance as a tactile, covetable, and high-impact complement to mobile technology and the web and we are seeing a resurgence of interest in colorful and tactile papers as a foil to mobile technology, said Diane O’Connor, Mohawk Director of Public Relations. “As powerful as mobile and digital devices are, there is nothing that replaces the impact of touch,” she added.

Mohawk’s digital papers with i-Tone have been carefully engineered to deliver superior performance on today’s digital color production presses, she said. “Our proprietary i-Tone surface treatment has a unique affinity for both liquid and dry toners, offering flexibility for printers with multiple digital presses,” O’Connor noted. “The true benefit of i-Tone is seen in consistent, high-fidelity image quality, greater durability, and better toner adhesion, even on textured paper surfaces.”

Mohawk also created Inxwell surface technology to produce text and cover papers that have a classic uncoated feel, but with the added advantages of superior ink holdout, lower dot gain, and significantly increased opacity. “Ink and toner sit on top of the Inxwell paper for better color, greater detail, and outstanding photographic reproduction in all popular printing processes,” O’Connor commented.

Sappi digital papers are specifically engineered to perform on the most common high production color digital presses, such as the HP Indigo, Kodak NexPress, and Xerox iGen. In November, Sappi North America increased the brightness of its Flo Digital coated paper to 90. Flo Digital, engineered for everyday demand, is now available in a more contemporary shade and optimal brightness –for reflecting natural skin tones, bright hues, and sharp details.

Neenah Astrobrights are designed to capture attention and now feature an even broader offering to meet the needs of marketers.

In March, Neenah expanded its Astrobright brand, bringing bright fluorescent colors to the digital print world, such as Fireball Fuchsia, Solar Yellow, Cosmic Orange, to name a few. “This range of colors had not been available before in the digital world,” said Maze. Their use was also limited, outside of maybe an occasional flier posted on a telephone pole. “Now with access to this broader offering, the creative community can show new fun applications for bright colors and papers,” Maze added.

Astrobrights are being used for a wide range of end-use applications, from direct mail to invitations and baby announcements.

“It is fun for us to provide to answer to new trends, in terms of colors,” Maze said, pointing to recent studies that show that color increases retention by 18% and readership by as much as 40%.

At Dscoop 9 Neenah unveiled pearlized digital items in its Stardream Papers from the Design Collection, available in crystal, gold, quartz, and silver. Neenah also debuted uncoated durable digital papers in the Paper Tyger brand. Paper Tyger is a water and tear resistant paper substrate for menus, maps, or packaging applications.

While Neenah is going bright and bold, Mohawk’s large offering of premium papers and substrates for the digital printing market includes a nod to its legacy offset papers. It reached into the Strathmore Archives to recreate four iconic Strathmore paper shades that celebrate color and texture.

The Strathmore Heritage Colors pay tribute to historic shades, and are available in two textures – a lightly toothy Wove and a genuine felt Grandee – developed to have broad appeal to a new generation of printers, designers, and fine paper enthusiasts.

The company also recently introduced a letterpress finish in the Strathmore Pure Cotton line, designed to have the look and feel of old-school, handmade papers. “Based on the positive feedback we have received, we see a real appetite for finishes reminiscent of very old, fine stationery papers, like Laid patterns, mid-century embossed patterns, and other historic papermaking methods,” said O’Connor.

In addition, Mohawk has recently been named the exclusive North American distributor for The Curious Collection & Conqueror lines of fine papers beginning January 1, 2016, as a result of the company’s strategic alliance with Arjowiggins Creative Papers. “The Curious Collection is comprised of seven beautiful and tactile grades of extraordinary papers for projects that call for very saturated color and/or unusual textures,” O’Connor reported. These include:

• Curious Translucents, for use with designs where layering or show through is desired.
• Curious Particles, a 100% recycled flecked paper with inclusions for added interest.
• Curious Metallics, a, glittering alloy adds a shimmery, visual appearance and tactile texture in 24 fashion-forward and complementary colors.
• Curious Cosmic, a shimmery reflective colors with an extraordinary soft matte metal effect and a patented tactile feel.
• Curious Matter, featuring potato starch to create an intriguing tactile experience.
• Curious Touch, offering a deep soft matte texture.
• Curious Skin, bold colors invite recipients to touch and feel.

Mohawk will launch a new swatchbook featuring the entire line of papers (150 skus) within The Curious Collection in early 2016.

In addition, a series of recently redesigned Mohawk swatchbooks have been developed to make the paper specification process clearer, easier, and more inspirational for designers, printers, stationers and paper enthusiasts.

Also, said O’Connor, Mohawk provides additional value to customers through its website MohawkMakeReady.com, downloadable templates, a digital product finder, and digital equipment/ a substrate compatibility matrix that makes it easy for printers to find Mohawk substrates that are optimized for their digital press equipment.

To help designers, marketers, and print service providers (PSPs) break out beyond the traditional use of paper, Neenah created the EXPLORE series. Explore 1, for example, demonstrates how colored and textured papers can be used for unique short-run, digital print applications.

“You have to educate that there are different options out there, which is what we try to do with next Explore series,” said Maze.

In spring 2016 Neenah will launch additional colors and sizes. “We are constantly reaching out to our audience and people that use our papers every day to learn what are some of the gaps we have,” said Maze. “We aren’t going to announce anything earth-shattering; we are just continually trying to leverage all our popularity of our offset and increase the options on our digital portfolio.

To that end, expect to see more deep colors, more pearlized options, more weights, and more sizes.

Neenah folding boards are also being integrated into the digital line. “OEMs are focused on packaging use of digital technology; there has been a big increase and interest in our products in digital portfolio in packaging applications,” acknowledged Maze.