Holographic Carton Wins AIMCAL Product of the Year Award

The Association of International Metallizers, Coaters and Laminators (AIMCAL) on March 23 presented its 2018 Product of the Year Award to Hazen Paper Co. (Holyoke, Mass.) for its holographic carton for Kat Von D Metal Crush eye makeup. The awards ceremony took place at the group’s annual meeting at the DoubleTree South Park Hotel in Charlotte, N.C.

The Kat Von D Metal Crush highlighter palette carton features holographic Stardust metallized film laminated to the coated side of 0.020 solid bleached sulfate. The holographic film with the eye-catching pattern sets the stage for a printed, stamped and embossed surface and stands out on the department store shelf. The Stardust pattern with its pulverized metal appearance also reinforces the Metal Crush name.

“This carton has pizzazz,” noted one judge. “It really jumps out at you,” agreed another member of the panel. The judges also felt the package was well-executed. They concluded, “It brings a lot of elements together. It’s a beautiful use of holography and traditional printing.”

The judging panel also presented four Product Excellence Awards. Product of the Year winner Hazen Paper captured two, one for its role in a large setup box produced by WestRock/MPS (New York, N.Y.) for Marc Jacobs Decadence perfume and one for the Porsche Music to Your Ears brochure for the Burmester 3D High-End Surround Sound System.

For the luxury perfume box, Hazen laminates film with a copyrighted embossing pattern to paper. The linen-embossed, gold-metallized polyester/paper laminate is applied to the box by WestRock/MPS, and a mottled-burgundy flocked fabric label completes the elegant package. The flocked fabric label provides a tactile experience as well as visual impact.

“It’s not flashy, but it stands out,” commented one judge. “They’ve taken a lot of technology and created something special. It’s beautiful,” the panel concluded.

Visually, the Porsche Music to Your Ears brochure in a box appears to be a solid piece of aluminum, but it’s actually metallized film/11-point paperboard/metallized film, which marries Hazen Ultracure and Hazen 3DReflector CARD technologies. The laminate is ultraviolet-printable on both sides and feeds smoothly on the offset press. The result is an extremely flat, durable, water-resistant structure.
“This is really classy and clearly unusual in terms of the combination of technologies used and in the potential for other applications such as paper-based gift cards,” commented one member of the panel.

Toray Plastics (America) Inc. (North Kingstown, R.I.) earned a Product Excellence Award for its Torayfan Over-The-Mountain Portfolio of biaxially oriented polypropylene (OPP) films. Available in transparent, metallized or white and a variety of barrier levels, the film is designed to prevent packages from bursting when transported in changing altitude. A proprietary, modified PP core layer and a proprietary sealant work synergistically to improve hermetics and seal strengths. Compatible with virtually any pouch style, the films eliminate channel leaks and seal integrity problems caused by food residue in the seal area. 

“This structure definitely answers some of the problems commonly encountered with flexible packaging and seal integrity,” concluded the panel. 

A Product Excellence Award also was bestowed on Flex Films (USA) Inc. (Elizabethtown, Ky.), subsidiary of Uflex Ltd., Packaging Business (Noida, India), for a sparkling, tactile sachet with three-dimensional (3D) embossing for Shudh Plus Ultra mouth freshener. This package also received a Technical Excellence Award in the AIMCAL Technology of the Year competition. Glitter ink provides visual and tactile impact for the portion pack in a crowded retail environment. A specialized, laser-engraved rotogravure cylinder with customized cell geometry traps the high-solid content of the glitter ink, which transfers to the substrate with the help of capillary action and the tangential force of the impression roller. The sachet relies on several other technologies. The base design is printed on coated paper using rotogravure and flexographic technologies. The printed substrate passes through an electron beam coating line in register to create the embossed effect on the brand name. Hot-foil stamping transfers the 3D embossed effect of the logo. To deter counterfeits the embossed effect is stamped in gold on one side and silver on the other, the first time different metals have been applied simultaneously.

The judging teleconference was moderated by AIMCAL Executive Director Craig Sheppard. The panel consisted of experts in converting and packaging: Tom Bezigian, principal consultant, PLC Technologies (Cicero, N.Y); Robert M. Kimmel, Sc.D., associate professor, director, Packaging Science Program, director, Center for Flexible Packaging, Department of Food, Nutrition and Packaging Sciences, Clemson University (Clemson, S.C.); and Jeff Weber, former research principal Packaging Development at Mondelēz International (Deerfield, Ill.).