The Roslyn, NY, firm is the first to commercialize a proprietary electronic design process from Graham that translates 2-D artwork into 3-D relief design. This makes it possible to affordably create fine detail in the bottle’s sculpted image.
Special software used by Graham makes it possible to take a digitized 2-D image and apply relief to it in a CAD system. Still in CAD, designers wrap the 3-D image around the bottle shoulder and then transfer that digital information to the software used to create the tool path that will cut the blow mold. Time elapsed is four to six hours, a fraction of the 40 to 100 hours that might be required to obtain a comparable image by more traditional methods, says Graham.
The bottle is produced by Graham on two-stage, reheat-and-blow equipment. It takes a 43-mm injection-molded closure and has front and back glue-applied labels printed offset in four colors. The new bottle will phase out the 64-oz heat-set bottle used previously. According to Jeff Damiano, director of marketing and new product development at Apple & Eve, consumers will still pay the same $3.29 to $3.49 that they paid for the old bottle. Added mold costs incurred by Apple & Eve, says Damiano, will be amortized over time.
“There’s a sea of generic ‘swirl-top’ bottles out there,” adds Damiano. “We wanted to cut through the clutter.”
