Is it possible to use custom label artwork for custom bag printing?
Yes, you can certainly repurpose and reuse your label artwork. A simple re-layout of art elements will help you utilize the entire printing real estate of your new custom printed pouch. While labels limit you to specific areas for container placement, with custom bags you can print on most of the surface area.
Simply email your artwork to service@pouch.me so our Prepress specialists and print artists can check if we need to adjust certain elements to Spot Color instead of CMYK for you to make sure they print perfectly on flexible plastics. Using Spot Color creates more crisp and even prints on bag stock versus paper or foil label stocks because a single ink is used as opposed to CMYK process plates.
I also need custom labels. Can you work with a preferred vendor to help complete my custom pouches?
We currently have a sister company, Inkable Label Co., who specializes in all kinds of custom labels and stickers. We are under the same roof, and work well together to fulfill many custom packaging projects that require more steps for customization.
How long are Pouch ME pouches and bags expected to last?
We guarantee a shelf life of as long as 30 years for all our custom pouch and bag materials.
What type of printing does Pouch ME do?
We’re an online print packaging company specializing in creating custom pouches and custom bag packaging. Our most utilized types of printing are Rotogravure/Gravure Printing and Digital Printing.
Gravure printing is the current Gold Standard for flexible packaging. This process works particularly well for film materials. We guarantee our presses produce crisp photographic quality pouch prints, enabling much more sophisticated color nuances. Inks are more hardy against UV, and print in a beautifully even, solid opaque layer.
With digital printing, we are able process your order fast, with lower minimums than standard print processes since no plates are required. There are no plate costs or setup expenses, and we can produce your order swiftly with lower minimums than conventional print processes.
What are press tolerances and do they apply to my order?
Tolerance values give you an idea of the allowable variation of any part of your packaging (size, shape, position) from a base point so it can function properly. Tolerances are denoted by standard deviations, or plus minus values.
Everything manufactured in the market is prone to some imperfection, and all printing machines have an acceptable wiggle room for variance. While this doesn’t sound great, tolerances follow industry standards and are accepted by manufacturers worldwide.
With regard to packaging, having set industry tolerances allows for quick production and cost-effective pricing, since packaging typically doesn’t need very tight tolerances to be able to function at its best in the market.
A bag with a smaller boundary of deviation will obviously cost a lot more to produce.For example, if you don’t need such a precise hang hole size, you will be paying a lot more for a pouch add-on that isn’t even that important, since pegs for retail display can accommodate a large range (or large deviation) of hang hole sizes.
What is important here is how strict the tolerances should be.
SAMPLE TECHNICAL TOLERANCE: Specifically, for degassing valves, these have an allowable positioning tolerance of +/- ⅛ inches based on the artwork file. This means that when you receive your custom bag, you can be certain that the valve is positioned on the area as specified on your file, give or take an eighth of an inch. Because packaging isn’t as technical as
Please contact us if you have specific technical concerns about your custom pouch dimensions.
What is a custom pouch project?
When we refer to a “project” in our conversations with you, we are talking about configurations or specifications of your custom pouches per order or per transaction. We can also say, “custom pouch order” instead of “project.”
A custom pouch or custom bag project details specific information such as bag size, what kind of printing process is needed to produce those specific bags, and how many bags or pouches are required to complete that specific custom pouch project.
You have the power to upload as many design files as you want to any custom pouch project. When you upload a design file to your order, this file should match your custom pouch project's specifications.
If you have many design files and they all have the same specifications, it’s always a best practice to upload all of them to the same project or same order. By doing this, you also get better price breaks with higher quantities.
Still confused? Talk to us and we’ll get everything sorted out for you.
Are there any additional costs apart from the custom quote I received?
No. We do our best to be very transparent with pricing. When you pay for your order using the invoice link from our service team, you can rest assured that is the final price, without any hidden fees.
The total cost at checkout is the only amount you need to pay. With Pouch ME, you get the full deluxe Prepress service for free. Shipping throughout the USA is also free, unless you expressly request for expedited shipping.
*ARE THERE ADDED BANK TRANSACTIONAL FEES WE SHOULD MENTION?
Can I see a mockup or actual sample print of my pouch before ordering?
Your choices matter, and making sure you are 100% sure about your order is the most important commitment that we want to secure.
All orders always have soft proofs attached. Soft proofs are digital files. These are electronic .PDF files viewed on your monitor to check for layout, spelling, and grammar issues. Our Prepress designers will include a Prepress report to help you understand what changes were made to your file and why. This is always free of charge.
If you need an actual sample print, we can provide what is called a “hard proof.” A hard proof is a physical print of your bag utilizing the same inks, printing process, and material or film stock that will be used to make your pouch. This is meant to show you actual quality and thickness. Hard proofs can be paid with the order, or separately if you need to double check before ordering the total quantity of your custom pouches.
Please send us a message if this is your first time to print your pouch or bag artwork and need help sorting specifications and build. We consult for free and want you to be totally sure before ordering.
What type of artwork files do you accept and how should I save my files for printing?
We work best with layered .PDF files, but also accept .AI, .TIFF, .EPS, and .PSD files.
To make sure the file checking process is quick and revisions are easy to do, please make sure you:
1) Proofread your artwork for typos and grammatical errors. Creative work is fun, and we know sometimes you need to have certain misspelled words that are intentional, or skewed phrases meant to be your own kind of jargon, so we never touch any text.
2) Check your color mode and set everything to CMYK for gravure and digital printing. RGB colors are the language of monitors that printers don’t understand. If you’re working with digital artists, make sure to tell them to use CMYK so we don’t need to convert anything on our end. This step guarantees you get precise color, as long as you keep using the same pouch materials and print process.
3) Add a 3mm bleed all around your pouch artwork. This simple addition guarantees we don’t get any weird unprinted areas on the peripheries of your pouch anywhere.
4) Check your raster art elements. If your custom pouch art is created with raster images, please make sure these are at least 350dpi. We want you to receive the best, most crisp prints, so a high resolution raster image is a must.
5) Check your lines and make sure these are at least at .57pt or 0.2mm line thickness. If you insist on using lines that are thinner than that, we can’t really guarantee that those lines will print evenly because of the tolerances of any printing machines.
6) Double check your pouch specifications and match those up with your artwork dimensions. This simple step saves a ton of time on proofing. If they don’t match up, please go back to your designer and let them know that they need to create your file in the right size, otherwise our print designers will spend more time than usual on your files.
7) Remove marks. We have no use for printer’s crop marks or registration marks, so please don’t trouble yourself to include them in your PDF export.
8) Create outlines for all your fonts. If we don’t have your specific fonts in our library, we can take a lot longer proofing your artwork.
If you need help creating your bag artwork or need help finalizing your design and layout, please send us a message. We can help you polish your pouch artwork.
