Section 4.3: Design Innovations

In an age of material abundance, design has become crucial for most modern businesses as a means of differentiating and as a way to create new markets.

Glass can be molded into an infinite number of shapes and sizes for consumer appeal and form and functionality. And, creative labeling, embossing and other decorative treatments can also enhance customer appeal.

Two properties of design:

1. Significance - having importance or meaning
2. Utility - quality of being useful

What is the industry saying about package design?

“DESIGN, that is utility enhanced by significance, has become an essential aptitude for personal fulfillment and professional success.”

- Daniel H. Pink, author of A Whole New Mind

“Consumers are trading up to quality-based aspirational brands in all of the significant categories within the beverage industry”

- Todd Woloson, Co-founder and CEO, IZZE Beverage Company

“A lot of growth in alcohol is taking place in the higher end. People are trading up to higher quality and more expensive products”

Source: Beverage Marketing Corporation, March 2006

“We’re offering domestic light beer drinkers the option to ‘trade-up’ to an easy-to-drink product that carries the image and cachet of Heineken’s premium status.”

- Andy Thomas, CEO Heineken, USA

Technology for Design and Differentiation

Glass manufacturers continue to take full advantage of improvements in technology to respond quickly to demands for new types of packaging. Glass containers can be designed and manufactured quickly (from conception to full production within 16 weeks) to meet virtually any packaging need. Stock containers possess the same premium properties as custom glass and can be made available with new labels.

A carefully crafted design is the first step in good manufacturing. Before any glass container can be manufactured, it must first be designed and undergo a critical review process to ensure that it can hold up on the production and filling lines.

Glass container manufacturing quality is a direct correlation to the process controls in place and to standards in which these controls are held:

• Batching
• Melting
• Conditioning
• Forming
• Packaging
• Warehouse
• Shipping

Each step in the glass container quality process is subjected to numerous automatic, semi-automatic and manual monitoring and measuring steps both through electronic or human intervention, so as to meet or exceed our customer’s requirements.

Because of new technology, glass manufacturing companies are more responsive to clients and to changing tastes and demands in the marketplace:

This includes:

• Designing the container,
• Producing a unit mold,
• Acquiring the raw materials,
• Ordering commercial molds, and
• Going into production.

Here is a video on Glass Design

Glass Enhancements

Labeling
Creative labeling and decorating techniques promote brand identity, marketability, and shelf appeal of products through blending such design techniques with the shape of the container.

Today, glass containers are designed to take advantage of what works best for different marketing channels, whether on the shelves of supermarkets, pharmacies, or convenience stores.

Applied Ceramic Labeling (ACL) or Silk Screening:

• A process where ceramic inks are printed directly onto bottles and then heated to adhere the ink directly to the bottle, creating permanent decoration.
• ACL graphics can be up to three colors with potential for 360 graphics on the body and/or neck areas.

Heat Transfer Labeling:

• Enables the transfer of a high-resolution graphic image directly onto a bottle.
• The bottle and label carrier are pre-heated so that the graphic is released from the carrier and transferred to the bottle by a special thermally activated application process.
• The bottle is then reheated so that the label bonds with the glass surface.

Shrink Sleeve:

• A full body PVC or PETG pre-printed sleeve, which is applied over the bottle and shrunk with heat or steam to fit the body contour of the bottle.

Pressure Sensitive Labeling:

• Entails the transfer of a graphic image onto a pre-cut adhesive-backed clear polypropylene film, which is then applied onto a bottle.
• This "no-label look" is similar to the silkscreen ACL label except with more color options and tighter print registration.

Cut and Stack Labeling:

• The most commonly used label process for food, beverages, wine, liquor and other types of packages.
• This technique uses a wide variety of printing methods and it is a fast application process.
• Packages are labeled after filling and/or after retort or pasteurizing.

Glass Decorating Techniques

Acid Etching:

• Creates an eye-catching frosted appealing look by immersing glass containers in a chemical solution (hydrofluoric acid), which reacts on the surface of the bottle.
• This process is commonly used with cosmetic, liquor and wine bottles.
• Acid etching can be performed on any color bottle and is compatible with all labeling processes.

Embossing:

• A distinctive image or lettering (either raised, or "in relief" on the bottle) created during the glass bottle molding process.
• Cost effective decorating alternative to create a quality brand image.
• The visual impression and feel of an embossment help to generate consumer interaction with the package.

Debossing:

• The design is heat-pressed into the surface of the bottle, creating a depressed (or indented) image.
• The debossed cyclone swirl on the back of Bacardi’s Ciclón bottle invigorates this premium brand and makes a powerful packaging statement.

Specialty Colors:

• Specialty Colors can be applied on glass bottles to give brands a distinctive look.
• Common glass colors are Flint (Clear), Amber, Emerald Green, Georgia Green, Antique Green, Dead Leaf Green, Champagne Green, and Cobalt Blue.

Glass containers now are lighter in weight, more durable, and less prone to production error because of changes in technology that have improved the design and production process.

Computer-aided design systems and computer modeling help determine the cost and feasibility of a design without ever having to create the bottle. Through bypassing the task of both creating and executing prototype designs, manufacturers are capable of saving time, effort, and money on the production end.

Material Reduction or “Lightweighting”

Lightweighting - Def: Creating containers that are increasingly lighter in weight without sacrificing strength or performance characteristics.

Improved technology has led to lighter weight glass containers that are remarkably strong and safe. The glass packaging industry continues to look for ways to strengthen glass, through new surface treatments and better designs, without sacrificing the improvements in material reduction. Improvements in coating technologies have helped to make glass more durable and versatile for consumer use.

Lightweighting is has become one of the single most important innovations in the industry.

• By reducing the weight, companies are able to save on raw materials and melting costs.
• Production lines can run at a much faster pace because there is less glass per container and less energy needed for cooling. As a result of lightweighting, glass containers are more economical and competitively priced.
• The introduction of the Narrow Neck Press and Blow (NNPB) forming process is widely credited with helping to reduce the overall manufacturing weight and thickness of glass containers and thereby increasing productivity (on production and filling lines).
• Since 1985, the glass packaging industry has reduced the weight of glass containers and improved productivity by as much as 15 to 25%.
• In the NNPB process, the bottle is pressed into its initial shape while still in the blank mold.
• Manufacturers are able to exert greater control over the desired thickness of a glass container.
• Excess glass from the neck and other parts of the bottle-where thickness is not critical-are shifted into areas where it is needed most.
• The result is a reduction in the amount of glass required in a given container and more uniform glass distribution throughout the container

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Weight Reductions Since 1985

• 7 oz. Beer - 30%
• 12 oz. Long Neck Beer - 24%
• 12 oz. Beer - 17%
• 16 oz. Beer - 17%
• 32 oz. Beer - 21%
• 40 oz. Beer - 14%

• 10 oz. Soda - 24%
• 12 oz. Soda - 18%
• 16 oz. Soda - 16%

• 750 ml Liquor - 21%
• 1 Liter Liquor - 23%

• 10 oz. Juice (Sauce) - 30%
• 16 oz. Juice - 22%
• 32 oz. Juice - 21%

• 32 oz Vinegar - 32%
• 19 oz BBQ - 33%
• 28 oz BBQ - 21%
• 14 oz Catsup - 32%
• 32 oz Catsup - 26%

• 200 ml Flask - 19%
• 375 ml Flask (Non Round) - 27%

Surface Treatments

• Surface coating helps to maintain the outer strength of the glass container, improves durability and scratch resistance, enhances label adhesion and supports ongoing efforts to create lighter weight containers.
• At the hot end of the glass making process, a very thin coating of tin oxide is applied to the containers as they emerge from the I.S. Machine. At this juncture the bottles are about 1,000 degrees F.
• In the Annealing Lehr the containers are reheated to slightly above the annealing point and gradually reduced to below 1,000 degrees F.
• The purpose of the annealing process is to relieve internal stresses in the glass caused by uneven cooling during the forming process where the outer surface of the container cools faster than the inner surface.
• After the annealing process, polyethylene dispersed in water is applied to the containers at the cold end at about 250 degrees F.
• This coating reduces friction between bottles as they move through production and filling lines.
• Lubrication eases surface contact, improves mobility and preserves bottle strength, which is dependent on a surface free of damage.

Recognition

Clear Choice Awards

• Since 1989, the Clear Choice Awards has honored consumer product goods (CPG) manufacturers who expand the frontiers of glass packaging design by using glass containers in innovative ways.
• Sponsored by the Glass Packaging Institute, this is the only awards program that recognizes the contribution glass packaging makes to the image and success of everyday products.
• From sparkling water to salsa, baby food to bottled fruit juices, beer to flavored rums, pasta sauce to pickles, the Clear Choice Awards are presented to products that triumph in glass.

Press

• The Glass Packaging Institute’s communications team works with editors from the packaging, food, beverage and cosmetics trade publications to submit and place feature news articles on trends in glass packaging.
• In addition to informing the marketplace about the new trends and advances in the glass container industry, these media placements provide industry-wide recognition and brand-building media coverage for the products featured in these articles.

GPI In the News