When you have folding cartons, you might wonder how to print the information that you want to have. What’s the best way? With lithographic, flexographic, and digital being the options, you may wonder what’s best. Digital of course, is the cheapest, and is good for those with a more limited budget or order. 

Lithographic, known as litho, is a more premium type that does have a very high-quality sort of laminate to the packages. While most expensive, a lot of luxury brands use this for their image. 

Finally, you’re got flexographic, or flexo. This is good for low costs, bulk orders that are simple and economical with the three-color types of printing.  Most of the folding boxes fall into this one. 

We’ll go over both here, and the best times to use this. 

Flexographic printing.

 Flexo is probably one of the most traditional sort of methods for printing. You use a relief plate in order to stamp these designs onto the packages, allowing for a lot of print, without degrading quality.

Flexo is affordable, especially for printing designs onto folding cartons. It also is good for patterning merchandise such as gift wrap and wallpaper. However, if you have a design that’s high definition, it might not be a good option. 

It also includes photos that are high-resolution, and patterns that are intricate. Digital and lithographic are better printing options. 

Digital Printing 

Digital printing is more directly to the surface, eliminating the steps that are needed for more traditional sorts of printing. Companies that’ll sell these branded boxes may use digital printing for meticulous recreation of various digital images. 

Designs are scaled down and up, reformatted before you print. It offers better flexibility, without sacrificing the costs. 

Digital printing actually is growing a lot because it is valuable, and what customers need. 

With tons of opportunities for customization, it’s best for companies that require a quick and easy turnaround, because it will definitely work. It also strands out with more vibrant colors and other photorealistic imaging as well. 

It also is great if you’re pressed for time because the lead times are much shorter. 

Lithographic Printing 

Finally, you’ve got litho printing, which goes as far back as to the Greeks. Most litho is done through carving designs into plates made of aluminum, and a laser with rolling ink that’s gone over the plate surface. 

The ink gets transferred to rubber blankets, which then roll over the surface of these boxes. 

This printing is versatile and is applied to almost every material that’s out there. if you want some good magazine-quality printing on your items, or if you’re a luxury brand that needs to showcase a product, then get the litho.  You can get as many as six colors added to this, and if you’re going with bulk orders, this tends to be cheaper. For more dynamic colors and larger orders, lithographic printing might be ideal for the boxes that you’re trying to print. 

In general, printing does paan different areas, and there are tons of unique ways to use this. If you’re someone who is interested in building better printing for packaging, then you might want to do this. None of these are better than the other, and they all have their uses. However, there’s a lot of different factors that go into this. If you’re a company looking to really stand out, building the ideal printing that you want to have, you’re definitely going to want to look at these. Make the right choice based on your needs.