About the Company
As part of its commitment to customers, Golden Artist Colors Inc. (GAC), a worldwide, employee-owned company dedicated to providing professional artists with high-quality paints, included a wealth of detailed health and safety information on every product label.
Business Challenge
Every Golden Artist Colors product label housed pigment identification, chemical characteristics, general guidelines for safe use and corresponding graphics, in multiple languages. Every label listed the data in a unique sequence that was determined by chemical composition and government regulations. Additionally, the paragraphs were translated into 18 languages for the company’s international customers.
“We have always believed that people have a right and need to know what chemicals they are working with,” said Carol Diters, IT Manager.
Golden Artist Colors sells just under 10,000 SKUs, including acrylic paints, gels, pastes, gessos, grounds and varnishes, to professional art stores and directly to artists.
To create and print labels for a growing international product portfolio, Golden Artist Colors needed a comprehensive system to manage data; design labels with the correct paragraph sequence; and finally, print short-run, professional labels inhouse. The goal was to ensure that all labels were beautifully designed, technically correct, and looked as professional and as crisp as the preprinted labels typically used for high-volume printing.
It was important that the solution integrate with a state-of-the-art label printing software system and highquality printing, so the end result – a professional label – would surpass Golden Artist Colors’ high standards and also differentiate the products from its competitors. The company turned to Peak Technologies for help.
The Solution
After evaluating off-theshelf options, Peak Technologies recommended a custom, dynamic data management solution that integrated with Seagull Scientific’s BarTender software and high-quality Zebra printers.
It became clear almost immediately that Golden Artist Colors needed more than simply a new labeling software package. What the company really needed was a secure and centralized data/graphic repository that leveraged an industry-leading labeling software package to generate professional grade, ondemand printing of labels. The targeted solution needed to allow for the maintenance of data and product relationships in one centralized place, affecting changes to all product labels via that change, all while sharing a common label format template.
“As a systems integrator, the only logical choice was to implement a solution that included a custom application, centralized database, best-of-breed labeling software, thermal printers, media and service,” said Thomas Heitman, manager of solutions consulting at Peak Technologies
Management of label data became dynamic
Besides assisting artists with product selection, the information arranged on every product label also must fulfill a myriad of regulatory requirements, domestic and international. “Our goal is to be as thorough as possible and follow the letter of the law,” Diters said. In addition, the label could contain any one of up to 60 graphics, including product logos, warnings that indicate a flammable or otherwise hazardous product, and other information that must be displayed in a precise way to meet government and industry standards.
Golden Artist Colors also created unique symbols for its products. For example, a playing marble symbol designates products that are safe to use but should still be handled carefully. In addition, a special part of the label – known as “the slider” – indicated where the product fell on a sliding scale from transparent to opaque.
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Industry:
Paint/Acrylics
Business Challenge:
State-of-the-art label printing software system and highquality printer
Featured Services:
- Zebra ZM400 barcode/label printers
- BarTender barcode software
Key Benefits:
- Reduced time spent managing label
information by 50 percent - Improved label-printing process
security by eliminating access to
label templates
"As a systems integrator, the only logical choice was to implement a solution that included a custom application, centralized database, best-of-breed labeling software, thermal printers, media and service.”
- Thomas Heitman, Manager of Solutions Consulting
