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Design
Send us the art.
We’ll make it fit.
Tins are printed flat and shaped afterwards, and the shaping stretches the print. So the artwork has to be drawn for a curve it is not sitting on yet.
Colour
Matched over a white base.
Twelve to start from. Any Pantone is matched over a white base coat, at no change to the minimum. Metallics run direct to the bare substrate instead, using the tinplate itself rather than a metallic ink.
Someone has to design for that.
If it isn’t your team, it’s ours.
What actually happens
A mark goes oval on the shoulder. Type thins over a corner radius. How much depends on how far the metal has to travel at that point, so it changes across the face of one tin and again across every size in a format.
None of it can be judged on screen, and left alone it turns up at proof, which is late. A dieline mapped for the draw catches it before anything reaches plate.
What we need from you
A logo, your Pantone references if you hold them, and anything already running in market. Vector artwork if it exists, a photograph of an existing pack if it does not.
If there is nothing yet, that is a normal place to start. The format and the size get decided first either way, because the print area is not known until they are.
What comes back
A dieline per size with the drawn areas mapped, so artwork is placed against real distortion rather than a flat rectangle.
Pantone selection over the white base coat, print area confirmed against a physical sample, and a proof printed on tinplate, not on paper, which is a different surface and a different colour space.
Who owns it
Your artwork is yours. Files are released on request, in the format you ask for, whether or not you order again.
The dieline is yours too. If you take it to another supplier it will still be a correct dieline, which is the point of publishing tooling status rather than holding it over you.
Deliverables
What you actually receive.
- Dieline
- Per size, as AI and PDF
- Distortion
- Drawn areas mapped before artwork starts
- Colour
- Pantone selected over the white base coat
- Print area
- Confirmed against a physical sample, not a drawing
- Proof
- Printed on tinplate and approved by you before volume
- Files
- Released on request, in your format, with no lock-in
Registration and colour are confirmed per format at proofing. A Pantone on metal and the same Pantone on a carton will never be an exact visual match. We proof both together when a pack has to sit inside a printed box.
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