First packaging converter to receive Pantone certification for offset extended gamut printing.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. - X-Rite Incorporated, a global leader in color science and technology, and its subsidiary Pantone LLC, today announced that DISC, a leading New York-based packaging converter, has achieved PANTONE® Certified Printer status for offset printing and offset extended gamut printing. The PANTONE Certified Printer Program reviews and analyzes every aspect of a printer’s color operations – preflight, to file preparation and proofing, to ink formulation and mixing, and to process control in the pressroom. DISC’s certification confirms the company’s ability to consistently achieve the most stringent customer color requirements, efficiently and cost effectively, using offset and extended gamut printing with a fixed palette of seven colors.

“X-Rite worked with DISC to produce our Pantone Extended Gamut Guide, and we’re very excited to announce that DISC is the first packaging converter to achieve extended gamut seven-color printing process,” said Adrián Fernández, Vice President and General Manager, Pantone. “Extended gamut printing opens up new color palette possibilities for brand owners and converters without the added expense of spot color printing. Our certification process helps printers, like DISC, close the gap between CMYK and spot color printing by establishing standard processes for measuring and monitoring color in an extended gamut printing process.”

Headquartered in Hauppauge, New York, DISC is a leading producer of packaging and print for the beauty, healthcare, private label, entertainment media and consumer products industries. The company offers a range of advanced capabilities for prepress and design services, digital, flexo and offset printing, and finishing and converting for paperboard, plastic and mini-flute corrugate packaging as well as pressure-sensitive and extended-content labels.

As part of the certification process, X-Rite Pantone experts evaluated DISC’s three manufacturing facilities to establish and document standard operating procedures (SOPs) for more effective operating processes. Performance is evaluated on a quarterly basis to ensure continuous improvement and compliance with the company’s established procedures.

DISC now uses a CxF color exchange workflow and is PantoneLIVE™ enabled, instilling new confidence in customers that color will be right the first time and every time. To better manage the complexities of CMYK, extended gamut, and spot color workflows, DISC leverages ColorCert, a color quality control, specification and reporting solution in conjunction with the X-Rite eXact, a handheld spectrophotometer. By implementing new SOPs, software and hardware, DISC can achieve the highest quality and color for the most demanding brand customers efficiently and on-time. 

“These two certifications are the result of an exhaustive six-month review and testing of our systems and offset printing process,” explains Margaret Krumholz, president of DISC. “We were thrilled to work alongside X-Rite Pantone on the development of its seven-color extended gamut printing process, and to receive these certifications is a tribute to the hard work and dedication of our team to reach these challenging world-class standards.”