Palo Alto, Calif. – Dion Label has purchased a second HP Indigo WS6000 Digital Press, which is helping the company evolve from traditional converter to consultative brand partner.

A long-time HP Indigo customer, Dion Label significantly increased productivity with its first HP Indigo WS6000, leading the company to purchase a second WS6000. With its additional digital capabilities, the Westfield, Mass.-based company is moving upstream in the marketing process to help customers create labels and packaging with "shelf impact" that attracts consumers.

"In today's competitive landscape, brand owners cannot be limited by the capabilities of their converters," said Jan Riecher, vice president and general manager, Graphics Solutions Business – Americas, HP. "Forward-thinking companies like Dion Label understand this and are harnessing the power of digital print to provide high-quality, rapid results and to deliver strategic value that improves the bottom line."

Creating powerful packaging for seasonal opportunities

The HP Indigo WS6000 Digital Press's ability to print on both thick and thin substrates – from the lightweight media used in flexible packaging to the tag stocks used in folding cartons – enables Dion Label to offer more choice to brand owners. The capability to offer fast design and review cycles, short runs, multiple SKUs and variable data imaging means Dion Label can help even its small-business customers create affordable seasonal and personalized packaging.

"There is enormous opportunity for seasonal or versioned labels, but oftentimes our customers are convinced that the associated costs are only justifiable for large enterprises," said Randy Duhaime, general manager, Dion Label. "With the HP Indigo WS6000 digital press, we've been able to create label mockups using different color combinations on multiple substrates to let our customers see the options digital printing can provide at reasonable cost. We're now guiding our customers through the design process and it's made all the difference – for us and them."

The HP Indigo WS6000 Digital Press is more cost-effective than analog flexographic or offset production for jobs up to 13,000 linear feet, a figure that represents approximately 80 percent of the jobs label converters produce.(1) With more than 140 installations worldwide since the product's introduction in March 2009, the HP Indigo WS6000's success demonstrates the increasing migration of work from flexographic to digital printing.

Efficient color management and prepress workflows

Dion Label has integrated the HP SmartStream Labels and Packaging Print Server, powered by EskoArtwork, with both of its HP Indigo WS6000 Digital Presses to maximize productivity and quality. Features on the server include: Pantone-certified conversion tables for four-, six-, and seven-color printing; "double hit" separations for more effective use of white ink; and options for high-definition or standard screening.

In addition, Dion Label's HP SmartStream Labels and Packaging Color Kit is a high-end color management solution for cost-effectively and quickly matching Pantone colors, flexographic, offset or other print outputs. The kit, which incorporates EskoArtwork's Kaleidoscope software, automatically converts incoming jobs to the appropriate color space based on the specific ink colors installed on the press. The tool also creates spectral profiles of special colors and stores them in a database for consistent, repeatable quality.

The high quality, productivity and flexibility of HP Indigo have made it the industry's leading digital press brand and one of the best-selling label and packaging press brands overall.(2) It is the only digital platform to win major print quality contests when judged against flexographic- and offset-printed labels.(3) In 2010, participants in a blind-test packaging industry label sample evaluation said they preferred HP Indigo print quality over flexography by a four-to-one margin.(4)

More information about HP Indigo presses is available at www.hp.com/go/gsb and through the HP Graphic Arts Twitter feed.


(1)    HP internal data. Calculation based on 30 labels per meter.
(2)     HP internal data based on data from InfoTrends (2009) and Tarsus (2010).
(3)    HP Indigo-printed labels were best-in-show winners in the packagePRINTING magazine 2007 Excellence Awards and the Tag & Label Manufacturers Institute 2008 awards competition.
(4)    Survey of 229 visitors to the PACK EXPO tradeshow Brand Zone exhibit, Nov. 2010.