Owens Illinois (O-I) launches O-I : Expressions, an innovative service specially developed for design agencies, packaging professionals and beverage and food marketers who want to make their product stand out. Thus the glass manufacturer.
O-I : Expressions enables design at a later stage and combines the features of glass with a flexible, marketing oriented approach, and it is durable. The organic ink does not effect the recyclability of the glass.
The premium version of the service – O-I : Expressions Relief – is named after the sculpting technique and offers brands the possibility of tangible print effects, such as (colored) relief.
The technology
In 2014, O-I has invested in small-scale digital printing equipment to develop and validate the fundamentals of O-I : Expressions and O-I : Expressions Relief on the market. To market this service on an industrial scale, O-I invests in two industrial digital direct2glass print lines. These print lines make contactless direct printing possible through a Drop-on-Demand process, that only generates ink for printing when needed, according to O-I.
Spaceship
To celebrate the launch of O-I : Expressions, the company invited French industrial designer Matali Crasset to experiment with the technology. Matali has printed 90 glass bottles with O-I : Expressions and made with it a spaceship that could be seen at the Paris Design Week (7 – 15 September).
www.o-i.com