Packaging and Commercial Printing 2

Technological Development of Packaging and Printing> Section 2 Technological Development of Packaging and Printing

Goods need to be packaged and printed just as people need to dress. Therefore, the development of packaging and printing technology is not only related to the country's economic level, but also related to people's consumption level, and also related to the overall level of printing technology.

Packaging and Printing Technology> First, Packaging and Printing Technology

1. Small-scale letterpress printing in the 1950s At the beginning of the 1950s, with social and economic levels still low, commodity packaging and printing was still not very important, both in the process of commodity circulation and in the eyes of consumers. status. Packaging and printing products are mainly printed products such as trademarks and paper boxes. Most of the printing methods are mainly small-scale letterpress printing, with few lithographs and almost no gravure printing. Since trademarks, such as a type of printed matter, do not have the same format as the books, the format, the number of prints, and the number of prints are not stable. Therefore, such printing is generally called printing of parts. For example, before the public-private partnership in Shanghai in 1956, there were more than 900 factories engaged in trademark and packaging printing and stationery printing. Two or three sets of disc machines were used. Six or seven people were factories and almost all were private small factories. Because of the small scale of the factory, the simple equipment, the single production means, and the manual operation, the small factories are mostly placed under the leadership of the Bureau of Industry and Commerce.

2. The update of printing equipment in the 1960s After public-private partnerships, industry adjustments, and mergers and reorganizations were implemented in 1956, the total number of factories decreased, but the scale has been expanded, the production capacity has been strengthened, and the factory has developed from a single letterpress printing to possessing photography. Platemaking, printing and post-press processing integrated printing factory. In order to meet the requirements of customers and improve the level of packaging and printing, some factories have also set up an art design department.

In the late 1950s, China's printing industry was revitalizing its technological innovation. Many printing companies in Shanghai and Beijing changed the original manual-feeding disc machines and square box machines into automatic paper feeders. In order to improve the level of post-press processing mechanization, many factories have also changed the convex printing press to special machines such as hot stamping, die cutting, and embossing. The factory's comprehensive supporting production capacity has been strengthened, but it is still mainly small-scale letterpress printing machinery.

The increase in the economic strength of printing plants and the mass production of domestic printing machinery have created conditions for the printing plant's equipment renewal. Since the 1960s, disc machines and square box machines have been eliminated one after another. Four-open and eight-open platform machines have been used. Eight-open vertical and horizontal platform letterpress printers are used as the main models for packaging and printing. The letterpress platemaking began to adopt a large number of non-powder-etched copper-zinc plates, and the red-violet powder corrosion method that has long been used in copper-zinc plates was eliminated.

Since the 1960s, major cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangzhou and Shenyang have introduced advanced foreign packaging and printing equipment, which has initially changed the backwardness of the industry's equipment.

3. The rejuvenation of plastic film gravure printing In 1967, Shanghai's packaging printing industry produced the first plastic film rotary gravure printing machine. Afterwards, some printing plants in Beijing, Tianjin, and Shanghai also successively manufactured gravure printing machines. Initially, they were 1 to 2 colors. Further development to 4 to 6 colors, some printing machines also have the function of hot wax, slitting, rewinding or double-sided printing. The use of plastic films as substrates is a major change in packaging printing. Plastic film is non-permeable substrate, suitable for gravure printing, flexo printing and Other solvent-based ink; plastic film is also a continuous production, as a web-type printing material suitable for rotary printing (color image 21-1). Afterwards, a gravure multi-color printing press with a plastic film as a packaging substrate began to be widely used in packaging printing.

4. High-end color printing goes to offset printing The letterpress printing technology has always been more suitable for printing small print products such as text, lines, and color patches.

If it is a color continuous tone manuscript, you have to use mesh copper plate printing. Once the copper plated product plate has only four sizes, it is difficult to make a large area plate, and secondly, the tone reduction of the copper plate print is poor. What's more important is that copper-zinc platemaking has a high cost and it is not appropriate to print large-area color prints. In the late 1970s, Pingyin gradually went into packaging printing, and more of it shouldered the task of copying and printing high-grade color, large-area, continuous-tone originals. In 1980, Shanghai accounted for 65% of seal printing, plain printing accounted for 10%, and gravure accounted for 25%. In 1981, a packaging and printing committee was established to investigate 176 packaging and printing plants in 45 cities. The 176 factories have 76,882 employees, including 794 packaging designers. There are 120 Taiwan-made platemaking machines, including 21 electronic scanning machines. There are 899 typographic machines, 5221 CNC machines, and 302 gravure printers. In these presses, old equipment still accounts for 70%. The investigation shows that the letterpress printing is still the main printing method, and that plain printing accounts for a certain percentage. It is noteworthy that there are 21 electronic color separation machines for high-end color continuous modulation editions, accounting for about 40% of the total number of electronic color separation machines owned by the country. New technologies have entered the threshold of packaging and printing, but the old equipment is still in the majority. Packaging and printing has reached the starting line of the era of old and new printing technology.

5. The rapid development of packaging and printing technology The 1980s was an era in which China's printing industry was rapidly developing and old and new printing technologies were continuously replaced. The characteristics of the printing technology revolution are also reflected in the packaging printing. Hand-feeding machines and low-speed machines were gradually eliminated, and high-speed, automatic vertical and horizontal platform machines were used instead. The proportion of embossing is on the decline, while the proportion of typographical and gravure printing is on the rise. The degree of automation of auxiliary equipment such as glazing, die-cutting and scalding aluminum has also been improved. Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangzhou, Shenyang, Jiangsu, Sichuan, and Guangxi introduced more than 100 four-color flat printers and label printers. Packaging and printing is in a rapid change from manual to automatic, from low speed to high speed, from embossing to flat gravure printing, from one machine to one machine to multi-color, from general color to high-end color printing.

With the joint efforts of a large number of cadres, technicians, and workers in the packaging and printing industry, by the mid-1980s, the mechanical equipment of some key enterprises had rapidly changed from the levels of the 40s to the 50s to the late 1970s to the 1980s. The level of the decade has initially changed the backwardness of the packaging and printing industry technology.

The external reason for the rapid development of the packaging and printing industry is that China implements reform and opening up, and the sustained and rapid growth of the national economy, which is reflected in the increase in the production and circulation of commodities, will inevitably promote the prosperity of the packaging and printing industry. The packaging and printing industry's equipment update, using the latest results of contemporary printing technology, is undoubtedly the internal reason for the rapid development of packaging and printing.

6. China's packaging and printing industry has gradually grown into a global market . China's packaging and printing industry has not only changed the "first-class products, second-class packaging, and third-class prices" of China's export goods packaging, but also kept a close eye on its goals. In the "export, brand-name, high-end, best-selling". The Guizhou Moutai Gift Box printed by Shanghai Bump Color Printing Factory won the "Star of Asia" packaging award at the 13th Asian Packaging Conference. The "China World Superstar" award was awarded to the China Super Premium Packaging Box printed by Shanghai People's Printing Factory. In the early 1990s, more than 20 gravure printing lines were put into production successively in the southeastern coastal cities of Shanghai, Dalian, Yantai, Qingdao, Jinan, Wenzhou, Longkou, Zhangzhou, Zhangzhou, Foshan, Longyan and Kunming. In order to cope with the development of gravure printing, Yuncheng, Dalian, Shenzhen, Dongguan, Jiading, Xiamen, Wuhan, Yantai, Harbin and other places have also introduced electronic engraving and gravure plate making equipment produced by American Ohio company and German Haier company. By 1993, there were more than 80 gravure plate engraving machines in the country, with 240,000 gravure cylinders and more than 200 gravure printing lines.

Shanghai, Tianjin and Wuhan have also introduced laser full-image printing technologies and equipment. The use of laser full-image printing of printed trademarks and labels can greatly increase the level of anti-counterfeiting of trademarks. The packaging printing industry in the 1990s has developed into diversified, high value-added, high-value, high-precision, beautiful, flat, concave and convex business lines. Some packaging and printing companies in Guangdong and Shanghai's coastal cities undertake high-end printing businesses in more than 20 countries and regions such as Hong Kong, Japan, the United States, Italy, and Singapore each year, becoming export-oriented enterprises, advanced technology and equipment, and excellent product quality that have enabled these companies to Have the ability to compete in the international market.

The diversity of packaging and printing products and the choice of printing technology> Second, the diversity of packaging and printing products and the choice of printing technology

There are many kinds of printing methods, what kind of printing methods are used for packaging and printing, of course, are related to the nature of printing materials, and also related to the functional requirements of printed products. Banknote paper is paper, but it requires high anti-counterfeiting performance, so it is printed with engraving gravure; book substrates are also paper, and text layout of books and magazines can only be typed with lead type, so it is necessary to use letterpress printing. Gradually adopting phototypesetting after the 1980s, newspapers, books and magazines using plain printing are also logical. The only printing and packaging materials are the most used. There are coated paper, white paper, cellophane, corrugated paper, plastic film, plastic barrels, paper-plastic composite materials, aluminum foil, cans, tinplate, etc. Shaped and then printed. In the face of these various kinds of substrates, we must consider adopting different printing methods. This is also an important difference between packaging printing and books and newspapers.

1. Prints that are suitable for plain printing Plain printing is indirect printing. Contact with the substrate is an elastic blanket. The curing mechanism of plain ink is oxidized conjunctiva type. Suitable substrates for printing include high-grade papers, and tinplates made of cans, iron drums, and tin boxes. Tinplate is a layer of tin plated on a low-carbon steel sheet. Also known as tin-plated steel sheet, tinplate is an impermeable substrate. In order to speed up the drying of the ink on the printing iron, drying equipment is often installed on the offset printing machine. Since the 1980s, advanced UV-curing inks (UV inks) have been used, and the printed inks can be cured in less than one second after being irradiated with ultraviolet rays, reducing the printing room and improving the printing speed. The JT1101 flat iron printing machine manufactured by Shanghai People’s Machinery Factory consists of automatic feeding, printing, and discharging. Together with the drying room, it forms a printing iron production line. In 1988, there were 150 printed irons in the country, with an annual iron output of 110,000 tons and an annual output value of 7.6 billion yuan.

Replacing embossing with plain printing is not only due to the low cost of flat printing and printing, but also an important reason. The maximum size of printing plates in letterpress color printing can only be opened four times, while the size of printing plates is almost not affected. The limitation is that not only the plates normally used have folios, but even full-length, double-paged typographers are available. Especially in the trend of large-scale high-end color development of packaging products, flat printing is more advantageous. After the 1990s, Pingyin has certain advantages both in newspaper printing, book printing, and packaging printing.