Business Articles >> How Do Printed Carrier Bags Get Manufactured? Here Is a Step by Step Process

How Do Printed Carrier Bags Get Manufactured? Here Is a Step by Step Process

Ezine - 02/22/2012

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I have been making printed carrier bags for over 10 years and have seen 100's of different factories this kind of product.

Globally, there are actually quite a few different ways to manufacture a bag and in this article, i would like to describe how at the luxury bags are made.

Firstly, a luxury carrier bag is anything that has rope or ribbon handles and is generally used by more luxurious brands. Nearly all of the bags made for luxury brands are produced by hand. The factories that produce custom bags usually have to be independently audited to ensure that no worker is under the age of 18 works and that they have the same rights as an EU worker.

Below is the simple step by step process on how this product is made across the world.

Step 1: Proofing

A sample is usually always produced prior to the production run. Once this is approved, the final artwork files are supplied to the graphics department.

The design of the carrier bag is printed in digital format one last time to check that the artwork file matches the client approved sample. Plates are then made for any flex-printing, foiling, embossing or any other print technique.

Step 2: Procurement of Materials

The paper stock that is used for the bag is purchased, the carrier bag handles, any particular foils or special laminations are also bought in ready to used.

Step 3: Printing & Lamination

Once the paper stock arrives and the plates have been produced. The printing begins. The paper is placed in sheet format into the Flexographic printing machine and throughout the production run, the colour and the registration is checked constantly to ensure that the colour is correct. Once the paper is printed, it is left to dry for a period of around 72 hours. Typically, the paper will be finished with a lamination to prevent it from tearing. Any foiling or embossing is then done at this stage.

Step 4: Die cutting and Creasing

Once the paper is printed and finished, it is fed into a machine that cuts and embosses crease lines into the folds of where the bag will be assembled. At this point, the paper is now a flat carrier bag ready to be assembled.

Step 5: Assembly

The carrier bag template is then placed onto a production line whose job it is to fold and glue (sometimes this can be automated) the carrier bag. The reinforced base and turnover are glued into the bag, the top of the carrier bag is turned over and the holes for the handles are punched in the correct place.

Step 6: Finishing

Finishing can cover all the details that are important to a carrier bag, metal eyelets for the handles, ribbon, tags etc can be added at this point. Most importantly the handles of the bag are threaded through the bag and wa-lah, another printed carrier bag is born.

This is a simple explanation of how the manufacturing process works. In practice, it is much more complicated process because of all the things that can go wrong. For example; certain glues don't work with certain papers, laminations can change the colour of the ink or scratch easily, the embossing and the registration cannot line up properly, the bags can lose colour when exposed to UV light and so on. Wrapology have developed a quality control process ensures these problems don't occur.

Over the last 10 years, I have worked with factories to solve each and every problem we have encountered and built in processes to avoid it happening again.