Why are there Random Colors on the Back of Products?

Packaging trends and strategies are continuously evolving. That’s the reason: we come across several innovations in custom packaging solutions every day. Currently, the brands’ focus is shifted to increasing and strengthening interaction with consumers. Random colors on the back of the product’s packaging are one of these innovations. Whether you flip a cereal box, a snack wrapper, or a toothpaste tube, a fascinating row of colorful dots, bars, or blocks appears. You might have noticed that these marks usually appear near the product information, barcode, or along the edges of the packaging.

It clearly indicates that these random colors are not just a decorative element of the packaging. They have some practical purpose to meet the advanced technical needs of the modern era. In this blog, we’ll uncover these facts and explain why these dots are in demand in almost all industries. What unique functions do they serve, how are they created, monitored, and evolved over time? So, stick to this detailed guide post and discover the science and strategy behind these seemingly trivial marks.

What are the Colors on Packaging? A Brief Yet Technical Insight

Serving various technical functions and marketing quality assurance, the unique colors on packaging are often referred to as:

·         Color control bars

·         Printer’s marks

·         Process control patches

·         Color bars/ Color strips

·         Test patches

·         Press control strips

·         Quality control marks

·         Printer’s test blocks

·         Process strips

·         Spectro strips

All these names are based on their specific usage and practicality. The prime purpose of these colors is to maintain a professional, high-quality, and fully consistent printing across all products.

Depending on the shape and placement, the colors on the back of a custom product packaging usually appear as solid circles, bars, or squares. Multi-colored rows, featuring Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black, also often appear on the box. Besides this specific color scheme, you can also go with a custom color pattern. Coca-Cola uses red, its brand-specific spot color, for this purpose.

Color control bars or printers’ test blocks are not part of consumer-facing designs. They are typically located on parts of the packaging that are meant to be trimmed or hidden during the finishing process. However, these marks may remain visible and eye-catching on certain packaging items, such as shrink sleeves, wraps, tamper-evident seals, and other such options.

Fun Facts About Color Control Bars & Codes – Why these Codes are Smarter than you Think!

The Actual Purpose of Random Colors on the Back of Packaging – Discover the Science

Being the control bars, these colors are checked by printers to serve as a reference point for:

• Color consistency
• Ink density
• Dot gain control
• Spot color accuracy
• Alignment of color layers (registration)

Let’s look into all these factors one by one:

1-     Ensure Color Consistency

In a mass production of custom-printed packaging solutions, retaining consistency is essential to build a brand’s strong image. These color patches are designed for this purpose. They allow press operators to monitor how consistently a brand’s specific shades are being printed through the entire run. For example, if a red color on food packaging shifts to purple, these marks have the potential to detect it immediately. By early detection, you can easily eliminate the errors and come up with highly professional packaging solutions every time.

2-     Perfectly Monitor Ink’s Density

It’s important to maintain ink density within specific ranges. Too low or too high results in damaging the overall outlook of the packaging. Too low ink density makes the colors washed out and a higher density leads to smudging and extended drying time. Densitometers or spectrophotometers are used to scan these patches and give real-time feedback.

3-     Provide Dot Gain and Half Tone Management

Do you know that printed images are made up of small-sized dots? These dots, when aligned and combined together, result in a professional yet attractive printed image on the box’s surface. When the ink is applied to a paper, it can grow. This process is called dot gain. Color patches have a beneficial role in this regard as well. They help monitor the creation of dot gain and manage it professionally to avoid printing issues. This way, businesses can easily maintain image sharpness and tonal range.

4-     Ensure Registration Accuracy

Have you ever observed that most of the packaging designs are a combination of 4 base colors, Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black? That’s the CMYK color scheme, where all these 4 colors are perfectly and professionally aligned together to give a high-end visual appeal. If these colored layers are not aligned perfectly, they give a blurry or double-vision effect. To avoid this issue, registration marks come into play. Often called crosshairs or alignment marks, these marks ensure that each layer is perfectly aligned on the packaging surface.

5-     Thoroughly Verify Spot Colors

Other than CMYK color printing, many brands go with the spot color printing option. Unlike CMYK mixing, these brands use specific hues, such as Starbucks green or Tiffany blue. Such inks require precise control for maximum results. Color swatches on the print layout help verify these spot colors and reproduce accurately.

Common Misconceptions about Colored Quality Marks

Let’s disclose some common myths about test patches. A few of them are shared here:

Creation of Color Marks – The Step-by-Step Process         

Unlike other printing methods, the color marks are not added as an afterthought effect. They are already integrated during the designing and pre-press process. It usually takes 3 steps to create perfect, professional, and functional color marks. These 3 steps are described below. Have a look at them for a better understanding:

1-     Graphic Designing & Professional Layout Preparation

Being the first step in creating colored marks for a product’s packaging, professional graphic design and layout preparation lay the foundation for how the packaging will look, how colors will appear, and how consistent the final product will be across all product batches. Professional designers use advanced design software, such as Adobe Illustrator or InDesign, to create a perfect packaging artwork.

With these tools, they ensure that every detail aligns with the brand’s identity, product specifications, and unique printing requirements. Colored marks are strategically placed on the back of the packaging during this design stage. The marks are not visible to the buyers but are essential for printers to verify color accuracy and bar alignment during the production process. The professional process includes the following steps:

• First, the designer set up the packaging dimensions, such as bleed area, safe zones, and other factors.
• Then, CMYK color bars or spot color swatches are added to the back of the layout. This helps printers maintain the color consistency across the design.
• Next, the designer moves to textual integration. During this step, it is ensured that the brand’s logos, text, and product information must complement the brand’s aesthetics and marketing strategies.
• At the end, a box’s finalized die-line is prepared. It highlights the correct positioning of every artwork, graphics, and technical marks. This makes the file perfectly ready for the pre-press process.

2-     Printing Plate Preparation & Color Separation

When graphic design and professional layout are finalized, the next step, “plate preparation & color separation,” comes. Being one of the most crucial steps, this phase ensures that every color, line, and detail is perfectly and accurately conveyed onto the packaging material. Color Separation, the technical step, gives you a proper breakdown of the design into its printing components.

As you know that a packaging is usually printed with the CMYK color model and some additional spot colors, this step ensures that each color in the design is perfectly separated into its respective layer. This leads to the precise, accurate, and professional artwork production by printers. The Color Separation technique is further followed by the Printing Plate Preparation. In this step, each color is transferred onto a separate printing plate, typically made up of aluminum or photopolymer material. Here’s the breakdown of key activities involved in this step:

• Separation of the digital file into CMYK channels and/or spot colors.
• Engraving or imaging each color onto individual plates.
• Ensuring the perfect alignment of all plates, leading to the seamless final print layers matching without blurring or misregistration.
• Verifying the consistency of color separations and plate outputs with the intended design.

3-     Print Monitoring

At last comes “Print Monitoring”, the actual printing stage. It ensures that colors, registration, prints, and overall design quality are well-maintained and managed. During print monitoring, the colored marks are professionally and perfectly placed on the back of the product’s packaging. Press operators then measure and evaluate these marks. They check whether the inks are applied perfectly, in the right density, alignment, and balance across all packaging units or not. This leads to the creation of highly professional and attention-grabbing prints.

The step is vital because even a small oversight can lead to thousands of defective packages. By using colored marks as a control tool and constantly monitoring the print process, packaging manufacturers ensure that the final product is both visually appealing and technically precise, maintaining consistency across all production volumes. The following aspects are typically included in this step:

• Color accuracy assurance with spectrophotometers and densitometers.
• Registration control is ensured by ensuring the perfect alignment of printing plates.
• Ink flow & consistency to prevent smudge, streaks, and faded areas.
• Quality assurance to guarantee uniformity in every batch.

Advanced Technologies Used in Making Colored Codes & Bars on the Back of the Product’s Packaging

Modern printing systems integrate these color marks with digital workflow tools for smarter, more efficient quality control:

Top 3 Globally-Famous Industries Using Colored Marks on the Back of Packaging

Almost all industries in the world use printed packaging, featuring colored marks. However, the following 3 are highly renowned for offering products in custom packaging with colored marks at the back. Let’s have a look at them:

1-     Food & Beverage Industry

Whether you buy a cereal box, a snack pack, or any other edible product, you might have wondered what are colored dots on food packaging are. They are nothing but the color-control bars to ensure color accuracy and the brand’s recognition. Specialized inks are used to create food packaging colored dots because ink quality is highly crucial. It affects the legibility of ingredients, allergens, and expiry dates. Here’s a breakdown of common colors on the food packaging and their probable meanings:

• Red color on food packaging stimulates appetite, conveys bold flavors, and grabs attention. Coca-Cola uses this shade.
• Green color represents health, freshness, and food’s natural or organic qualities. Starbucks, Subway, and other brands are known for using green color.
• Blue suggests cleanliness and trust. It’s ideally used on the food packaging boxes carrying low-calorie or fresh edibles. Nestlé is a famous name in this regard.
• Black implies luxury, premium quality, and a memorable unboxing experience. Pepsi Black/ Pepsi Zero Sugar goes with this color approach.

2-     Cosmetics & Beauty Market

This industry is a hub of premium and top-quality products. As it’s the place where you often come across high-end packaging, the requirement of precise color matching and premium finishes is completely understood. Holographic elements, metallic inks, matte, or gloss contrasts add complexity to the packaging design. That’s why color codes on the back of the packaging are compulsory. They help verify special effects, such as spot UV coating, embossing, and foil stamping. Below are some reasons that explain why color bars on the back of cosmetic packaging are required:

• They help printers verify that shades, such as lipstick reds and foundation tones, are printed correctly or not.
• Used to confirm the proper registration of CMYK plates.
• Support quality control by letting printers measure the bars during production to detect and fix errors quickly.

3-     Pharmaceuticals

Medicine packaging is one of the most critical aspects in the world. That’s the reason the pharmaceutical industry is one of the most sensitive and strictly regulated markets in the world. Whether they are dosage instructions, expiry dates, composition formulas, warnings, or any other detail printed on the box, it must be absolutely clear and error-free. To maintain this precision and accuracy, colored codes and bars are often printed on the back or side of pharmaceutical packaging.

• Colored codes simplify the identification process of different drug types, batch variations, and their specific potencies.
• They help warehouses and pharmacies quickly sort, store, and restock medicines by simply matching colors, improving accuracy, and saving time.
• Colored bars on the back of medicine’s packaging act as a visual cue to prevent wrong product dispatches.

Concluding Remarks

So, next time, when you see a row of colorful bars and dots on a snack wrapper, shampoo bottle, or any other packaging, remember that they’re not normal. They are far beyond meaningless decorations; they are the reason behind the accurate look of your branded products.  From color accuracy to print alignment, these tiny patches play a huge role in keeping packaging consistent, professional, and brand-aligned across the globe. At CPP Boxes, we are highly aware of this fact. That’s why our professional packaging designers and engineers go above and beyond to create fully customized packaging solutions with color control bars at their back. Contact us at 888-395-0493 or quotes@cppboxes.com and get wholesale boxes with free shipping and fast turnaround facilities.