API is leading the way in the creative development of holographic and other highly visual optical packaging solutions with the launch of its custom decorative holography service, Holonique™ Boutique. The service is designed to provide API’s specialised knowledge in the use of holography and 3D Designs, which, as an integral part of the product pack design, can add the extra dimension to brands across the food, drinks, personal care and beauty sectors.

Holonique™ Boutique is a key element in API’s expansion of holographic foil and film manufacturing capabilities after its completion of a recent £0.5 million investment in its facility in Livingston, Scotland. The site is now the key holographic manufacturing site in Europe for API, providing packaging customers with world-leading decorative holographic foils and films from three separate coating lines and a seamless embosser.

API uses its wide range of novel visual effects to create exciting and engaging holographic designs that make products distinctive, communicate brand values and attract more consumer interest. While holography is often used to protect against counterfeiting, it is its eye-catching appeal that is the core of API’s Holonique™ proposition. The bright colours and dynamic movement of a hologram, together with the traditional print on a pack, add the kind of depth and dimension with which consumers love to interact.

Through providing this holographic interplay with print and helping brand owners visualise their brand’s potential, API’s brand enhancement products and Holonique™ Boutique service are ensuring brand packaging meets the latest in design needs and delivers an extra dimension to customers.

The Holonique™ Boutique team is led by David Peters, Creative Development Manager, whose two decades of experience in luxury products and packaging are helping to spark innovation and aid brand evolution to a larger audience, including designers, printers and brand owners. This breadth of experience is ensuring that API can help identify relevant trends and specify the best packaging approaches for its customers. By working to identify the underlying need in each customer’s brief and ensure that the creative solutions presented answer this need, API’s recent work with holography is delivering the very best results for each customer’s pack.

“As brand and category managers grow more sophisticated with their market segmentation, holographic and diffractive patterns are becoming key to this differentiation, delivering luxury effects, increased customer perception and premium impact as part of the overall packaging design,” said David Peters. “By working closely with our customers and from a much earlier stage, our Holonique™ Boutique team are here to guide through the complete process, with support at every level.”

Uniquely, API’s end-to-end holographic product and service capability in this arena, together with its design knowledge, is helping make holography genuinely relevant for brands. Holographic techniques can be incorporated into packs, and the Holonique™ Boutique team works with customers and designers to develop this concept – from knowing how the light will catch a shopper’s eyes by combining with the pack structure and print, to taking inspiration from the latest trends to deliver dynamic impact, the opportunities to add depth and sophistication are aplenty.

“By delivering the completed product solution through working across the packaging supply chain, we have helped a number of new and exciting holographic packaging designs launch in the market,” concludes David. “From a new premium impact drinks gift box for a leading spirits brand, which highlights the interplay with the print, and a Fresnel holographic lens that enhances the unique branding device, to the subtle visual elegance delivered on packaging – holograms are delivering an edge to countless brands.”