Commercial Printing Tips

The 4th Book Of Great Printing Tips From A Printing Pro

This book is the third collection of blogs I have written since the last booklet and having done so over a period of the past months in order to help keep my clients informed and provide them with an understanding on how to get the most out of your printing jobs and at the same time reducing your costs. I hope you too find this helpful. 7/28/12 Ira Blacker

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Copyright 2012 Printing By Design

COPY? “I DON’T NEED NO STINKING COPY”! WRONG! One time I received a book, of all things, to print for a customer and the copy on the book cover was, frankly, embarrassing. One would think that of all folks who print, one seeking book printing, yes an “author”, would have mastery of their words. Unfortunately the copy on the cover was so pitifully bad, in all respects that I just could not commit, as a book printer and as an educated person, to print a book in this fashion. My pity for this person led me to rewrite his copy on the cover for him as a favor. Needless to say, I was not going to venture into the text part of his book for fear of what I might find.

Now here is the issue: If an author can ignore quality copy writing for his own book printing, can you imagine what we get to see with copy quality or lack thereof for poster printing, magazine printing, catalog printing and the rest of the commercial printing gamut?

Let’s take a look at what can offer the commercial printing buyer an advantage when producing magazines, catalogs brochures and other items for their businesses.

1-Grammar- This should be obvious, but not to all unfortunately. Bad Grammar will dilute your message and lessen the chance of you making a sale. If your structure is muddy your message is thus muddy and unclear and you want your message to get across. Don’t use elongated sentences or paragraphs that run on forever. If you break up your thoughts with appropriate form and punctuation you create an easier read. An easier read, is a clearer message and closer to closing your sale.

2-Spelling- As above, misspellings not only dilute your message but they make your message sound less credible. Why would anyone want to buy something from an illiterate who as a result of that does not sound credible? Use spell check!

Most people have Word or similar office programs, so use the spell check part BEFORE you turn in your magazine article, book printing or catalog printing project to the printing company. It will also save you catching it a proofing time and thus save you tons of money that you would unnecessarily spend at your printing company re-doing new output.

3-Compelling Style- The biggest question you need to pose while posturing as your own customer is WHY YOU? Why should any stranger buy your product or by from you? What distinguishes you from any other person selling the same or similar products? The answer is you potentially using compelling language. If you want folks to request your catalog or magazine, than you need copy that will compel them to want it and/or your products. How many times have you seen on TV an advert that essentially promises you what is “industry standard” and that you would wind up anyway? An example would be a “money back guarantee”. Hey, if you were unhappy, you would be sending it back anyway. This is one example of the USP, the Universal Sales Proposition, which is the modern language of sales. Folks do not care about “what you have to offer”, or “what your capabilities and/or equipment list is, they want to know one thing: If you are printing their books or magazines, “HOW DOES IT BENEFIT ME”? The bottom line is you need to be selling benefits and not “mission statements”!

4-Descriptive of Item- When you are describing your widget are you being clear and concise so that anyone can understand what it is? Unless your price is the lowest in your niche, or you are printing catalogs for a wholesaler of your products, if you can avoid adding prices, do so. It is better for the potential customer to contact you directly so that you can negotiate and close a sale.

5-Who Is Your Audience- If what you are about to do is catalog printing, are the items in your catalog appropriate to a certain niche or customer type. If they are you would best write copy that is most in tune with that audience. With magazine printing it would be more important as almost every magazine has an intended audience. You would not reference rap musicians in a financial magazine.

6-Add Urgency – A Call to action, from a simple CALL NOW for your free widget. Don’t be afraid to ask your potential customer to commit to you, as if you do not, the odds are likely they will not. Consider including trends that people may want to keep up with. Add any items from the news that may relate to the importance of utilizing your product or service 7-K.I.S.S – Keep It Simple Stupid and make it an easy read. Make your points and make sure you leave the reader with a clear understanding of what you are selling and why it benefits them.

8-Keep It Interesting – Have fun with what you write. Take chances in order to get attention. Humor always works. If you are selling a product or a service, what you write does not need to by dry. See if your words can stand up on their own, without your images, and with the utmost clarity, simplicity and be compelling to the reader as well.

We look forward to working with you on your next project at our printing company, where you will not only find quality at the right price, but a bit of humor along the way, as that is what makes life interesting.

Nice Photo, But It Will Print Like Junk!!

Let’s spend some time talking about the images required for the commercial printing of magazines, catalogs, posters, books and other items produced by commercial printing companies. More to the point let’s discuss what is required vs. some of the horrific images that are supplied to a printing company as part of a commercial printing project. In the course of which I shall offer a trick or two on how to verify the validity or appropriateness of your image and how they should be created and/or supplied to the printing company.

With all of the files we get at our printing company for magazine printing, catalogs, folders and all types of assorted printing projects, you would be surprised about how many arrive with images that look as if they were meant to be displayed for Mr. Magoo, the near blind cartoon character. In other words not fit to print.

Let me start off with this tip so you can tell right away if your image is fit for a commercial printing company’s printing press. Just because you look at the image on your screen and it looks fine, does not make it so. The biggest problem people face with images is resolution. Screen resolution on newer monitors may be 90 dpi. But let’s assume yours is 72 dpi, which translates as 72 x 72, as it is measured in two dimensions. 72 x 72=5184. Commercial color printing requires 300 dpi, which would be 300 x 300=90,000. Therefore 72 dpi contains five percent of the pixels or information required for a quality commercial printing job. HELLOOO, MAGOOOO? If you want to know what your image will look like on press, blow up your image on screen to 400 percent and this will give you an “approximate”, repeat approximate idea of how it will look once printed. If you are seeing pixels, soft image or general mud, that is how it will print.

My Monitor shows the following: In the best scenarios there is no such thing as a perfect screen and images vary from screen to screen and only the best of designers, with a highly calibrated and expensive monitor, can then make the leap as to how what they see on screen will look on press. The experienced and professional graphic designer will know that if his reds look like XYZ on screen, they will show up with a variance on press, but experience has taught the designer what to expect. Should that not describe your own acumen, the best thing to do is print it out. Always create with your desk to printer “in full effect”, as the slang term goes. When you are nearing the end of your project, go to a local copy shop or printer with iGen or Canon equivalent and print it out as that will be the most representative as to what you will end up with. Ink jet, which is newer and superior to offset printing, will not.

Are JPG’s OK Yes and no. They are not the preferred format for images to print with. Many people manipulate their images in Photoshop or other programs. Each time you save the image after some manipulation you are degrading that image further. Photoshop, when you manipulate the image as a Photoshop PSD file, rather than a JPG, will not degrade the image each time you save it. I think the same would hold true for a Camera Raw file which Photoshop uses. At the very tail end of your project, after all manipulation of the image is complete, then save your image as a Tiff file with compression turned off. SAVE YOUR PSD FILE and hold onto it, so that if you must make changes you do so with that and not the TIFF. I increased the DPI? How nice, but you wasted your time. Taking a low resolution image and simply increasing the DPI in Photoshop does absolutely nothing for your image and does everything to waste your time. Until such time as Adobe can enhance Photoshop so that it fills in the needed pixels to perfectly mach those missing from your image you are spinning your wheels. The only thing you can do to make a crappy image better is to reduce it in size. However, you must first uncheck

the box in Photoshop that enables the image to be “re-sampled”. By doing this, what you are doing while making a smaller image, is “compressing” the given amount of dots into a smaller area. Once done if you check your DPI, you should have a higher one that the one you started with. Add a frame around the picture or use your creativity to make the smaller image work for you. Or, simply get a better image.

Image Reduction by Jamming You wouldn’t buy a pair of shoes that were a size 6 and try and jam your size 12 “feets” into them or would you? Sorry, I forgot who I was talking too. Just kidding! No you would not. So why do you take a 12 x 12” image and place, place it in InDesign, Quark, or another document program and reduce the size of the image once there? Bad boy! What you have just done, times as many instances as you have done this silly thing is to overweigh your file and bloat it. It may even crash the rip and default all to 72 DPI depending on the equipment and size of the final “masterpiece”. Never size your images in a document program. Size them in Photoshop before importing them into your document. Then adjust the fit either to the image or image box.

Willy-Nilly Image Naming If you have ever named your image along the lines of “image 12B3”, or “john’s cat” please don’t. Think of what you are creating as not only building something that is logical, but that also will need to be understood by others once you present it to them. Name your images after it’s usage in the document. Example: if you have three images on page 13, name them as “catp13, dogp13, momp13” and not some nonsensical and useless file name. This way, once you are done you can also create what is called a “style sheet”, which is a road map to your files for the ones who must work with it after you and output it in order to print your magazine or catalog. This way they know which page all the images marked as “…p13” go to. If you have copy beneath an image, it makes it a cinch, should anyone else need to work on your files. If you have a problem at press and need pre press to fix something you will be glad of this advice.

Cropping and Bleeds Needless to say, crop your images so that what you are left with clearly shows what is important and deletes any extraneous information or image area that is not. If you want your image to bleed to the edge of the magazine page, then you must extend that image and all else 1/8” for sheet fed printing and ¼” for web printing. Otherwise, you will either see a white line or the trim as you intended it to be will be up to the jiggle of the press and the keen or not so keen eye of the person doing the final trimming.

Archiving Your Memories with a Full Color Book OK, you brag about the pictures you took of your wife, kids or your art, but you can do more. You post the images on Face Book or Pinterest afterwards. Why not do something more unique and memorable that you can pass down and share with your entire family or friends at the office if they are photos of your office friends and or events? Why not memorialize your great photos in a book? Is your family less important than any subject you may consider buying as a coffee table book? Think about archiving all of your great photographs in a soft cover or hard cover book. Hey, you may be even a more than average photographer, so why not memorialize your images in a very classy way, a photo book. If you need to make a presentation of your photographs, what better way than presenting your “photo book” to your agent or publisher?

With the advent of digital printing, and by that I mean 100 percent filmless AND sans printing plates, you can print short run or even POD books at reasonable prices. With the newest iGen or Canon equivalent presses, it is nearly impossible to tell the difference between the toner and an ink press production of book printing. The new technology now allows for a UV coating on the cover, just like you see in the retail book stores. Printing books has never been easier. No longer must you produce a minimal book printing run of 500 copies and spend thousands of dollars, as you can no print anywhere from one book, 50 books or whatever you need. You can become an overnight sensation as you are now a “published author” thanks to some minor effort on your behalf and that of a digital book printer.

The available options are almost endless in book printing when producing yours on a digital printing press from your book printer. You can choose a white gloss text weight stock, dull coated white or a natural white interior along with smooth offset stocks of any grade. What you cannot do is utilize any form of text or cover stock that is not smooth, such as linen or felt grade as the toner will not lay down evenly. Cover stocks can be smooth uncoated, dull or gloss but no thicker than 14 pts. It is advisable to use a C1S grade, for coated one side, as with smaller book printing binderies; the uncoated side has better adhesion with the glue.

Ink colors must be process CMYK or black, as none of these machines can print Pantones, except for the older Risograph of which to my knowledge cannot print process CMYK, as will be required for printing images during book printing. Another issue is size, as generally speaking the largest sheet that the iGen or Canon type of machines can produce is approximately 13 x 19”. While you can produce sheets this size, you will find it rather difficult to find a bindery who can bind them as a book. The longest length most case or perfect binder can accommodate is around 1213” on the binding edge.

Your bindery styles that will be available to you for short run book printing are as follows: Perfect bind, which is your standard pocket book, case bind, which is the hard cover, library edition bind and which can come with a Kivar or similar hard back cover, a dust jacket or a children’s or text book type bind, where a gloss sheet is laminated around a board and sealed with gloss lamination and end sheets. If you are creating a book that needs to lay flat, there is not only “lay flat binding” but Wire-O, spiral and comb, should you need a spine to imprint. You therefore have a considerable amount of book printing options for bindery style.

Needless to say, your images will need to be clear and of high enough resolution to print well. Just because they look good on your screen does not mean that they will on paper. Your screen resolution is 72 dpi and commercial book printing is 300. If a hair less than 300, the digital machines are a bit more forgiving than their ink brethren, but don’t push your luck.

The Coming Commercial Printing (friendly) Revolution I have seen the future and the future is now! Commercial printing today is the same as it has been for many years, with the exception of digital printing without the need for film and web printing that can make plate changes and be up to speed on color and registration in ten minutes or so. However with the advent of the Israeli inventor Barry Landa’s newest technology called “Nanographic Printing” (he invented the Indigo printing press), we are on the steps of some giant leaps as opposed to important, yet overall minor “tweaks” in the commercial printing field. Let’s take a look at what Nanographic printing is and how it may benefit your book printing, magazine printing, catalog printing and all the rest of the color commercial printing industry.

As Mr. Landa describes his trademarked process Nanographic Printing technology is a combination of offset printing with digital printing (pure digital printing would be his Indigo or Ink Jet technology, as opposed to offset presses bypassing the need for printing plates). It can print up to 8 colors and print at speeds far in excess of today’s offset printing presses. Sheetfed presses can print up to 13,000 pages per hour which is more than double the offset standard and 200 meters per hour of roll stock on a web printing press. Resolution can be at 600 or 1200 dpi (dots per inch – dots being what comprises the image) while today’s commercial offset printing presses are currently printing at 300 to sometimes 400 dpi. The inks used in this printing press process are also eco friendly.

Some of the features of this type of commercial printing is that the range of papers and substrates are almost unlimited, thus allowing all types of publications from magazine printing to book printing and also board stock for cartons and packaging. What is exciting about this new digital printing technology is that up until now, digital printing has been relegated to small runs due to the costs of machines like the Indigo, iGen, Docucolor or Docutech. With Nanographic technology the long runs can now effectively benefit with pure digital printing. Long run magazine, catalog and book printing, heretofore only in the wheelhouse of Heidelberg and similar web printing equipment manufacturers, is making room for the new kid on the block. This past April, Landa Corp. unveiled a complete line of both web printing and sheet fed presses.

Additional features of Nanographic printing, by combining both worlds of offset printing and digital printing are personalization and addressing and multiple versions of the same magazine or catalog. Imagine your catalog being printed with the name of the person you were sending one to?

One of the more important features of this type of printing is the higher quality. This is accomplished by a process wherein the pigment particles are a fraction of the size of the tip of a pin. It is a commercial printing technology where particles are measured in nanometers (billionths of a meter) and thus the name. They absorb light exceptionally well and deliver super high quality imaging that is even abrasion resistant. The machines are also very small by today’s offset or digital printing standards, thus taking up less floor space at the printing company and one pressman can operate up to four machines at once.

Therefore, you may ask, what can Nanographic printing do for me? Landa boasts the following: o o o o o o o o

Ultra-high speed digital printing The industry’s broadest CMYK color gamut Ultra sharp dots of extremely high uniformity The ability to print on any ordinary untreated paper stock, coated or uncoated The ability to print on practically any plastic packaging film or label stock Remarkable abrasion- and scratch-resistant images The lowest cost digital printing in the industry Low energy consumption and zero emissions

Here you can compare the dots for sharpness, high density and uniformity in order to visualize the optimal commercial printing net result, utilizing an ink jet printer, which is newer and better imaging technology than even an offset printing press, yet look how much better the images look with Nanotechnology:

INKJET PRINTING IMAGES

NANOGRAPHIC PRINTING IMAGES In the not too distant future, it is my feeling that this type of printing press will be sweeping the industry. When it is possible to print your books, magazines, catalogs and more with better quality, faster production times AND for less money, this is the “offer you cannot refuse�.

This is exciting new technology and will change the face of the printing press industry. This equipment is just hitting the market, so please do not request quotes just yet. Please Contact Us Now by visiting us at Printing by Design, and request a quote to find out how you can benefit from doing business with our printing company PBD!

Direct Mail Marketing Info You Can Use Direct mail marketing is a tried and true form of marketing your message about your services or products. If you have a new book, publish a magazine or even a new catalog, it is a way of staying in touch with your client or subscriber base as well as adding new clients to it. Social networking may be fine for some, but in many instances it has not paid off for all.

Direct mail, done correctly will in most cases bring you a predictable return. According to the U.S. Post office, direct mail accounts for a hefty share of all purchases from marketing efforts. The Post Office campaign which crossed all media of “if it fits, it ships” not only became a catch phrase, but accounted for 35% of all responses. Not too bad!

First of all, considering statistics, direct mail marketing works and is not only proven, but probably one of the safest marketing tools you can invest in for spreading the word about your book, magazine or other business offering. Let’s then take a look at some of the things you need to know before jumping in as well as some “tricks of the commercial printing and direct mail trade”.

Minimum Quantity To Benefit: The least amount to process and mail for postal discounts is 200 pieces. The more you mail to may have an effect on your postage rates, as the better chance you will fit into one of the more cost effective postal requirements for mailing.

What Are The Statistical Returns: Generally speaking direct mail marketing, like most of today’s standard marketing techniques, yields a return of approximately 2%. That does not necessarily mean sales, as you still have to convert the interest into sales. Let’s say you can convert 20% of those interested parties into sales which would amount to .004 percent. This means that on a mailing list of 10,000 names you would benefit from acquiring 40 new customers. What is that worth to you? You can do the math based on what your average customer is worth to you.

Most Cost Effective Print Media: Choosing what to print for your direct mail marketing adventure can be based on many things. If what you are sending out to your list is a catalog or magazine then that is what you must figure out how to keep it as cost effective as possible.

For example the first tier in pricing for bulk direct mailing items is based on a weight of no more than 3.3 ounces and I would not suggest that if postage savings are important to you that you take it right to the 3.3 edge. If over 3.3 ounces you bump up to the next tier and more postage money. Therefore while also considering your choices of paper weights and magazine, book or catalog sizing as they best serve your business and customer model, you also want to understand how adjusting these items can also save you on postage. You may have considered a magazine printing utilizing 60# text, but based on your page count, 45# or 50# may be your answer to conserving postage costs.

For those not mailing their own publication, book or catalog, then the most cost effective print matter to use in direct mail marketing is the post card. 4 x 6” cards will give you the best rate and even mail first class. If you go larger, you do not benefit from the post card rate and bulk mail rates will prevail as the best pricing for you. Depending on your message, brochures, letters and other items may be appropriate but they come at increased costs. For example brochure printing may cost more it requires folding and three tabs per postal requirements. Letters need an envelope plus the cost of insertion. These are things you can way as you define your requirements.

Methods And Rates: There are a variety of types of direct mail rates from the post office and each is dependent upon both what is to be mailed as well as the list provided to mail them with. Books can mail at a media rate based on the weight of the book and it is one of the most cost effective rates available. Rates are further determined by how you enter the mail to the postal facility. Bulk direct mail would be at the top of the pre sorted rates, and if the postcard or magazine were delivered to a mailing center rather than the local post office a better rate is had. An even better rate is available if the

printed pieces are delivered to postal hubs in the location of where the mailed to routes are to be delivered to. These are available providing you are mailing to a tight geographical area.

How To Maximize A Direct Mail List: If your product or service is generic: If anyone can benefit from your product or service than a “saturation” direct mail marketing campaign is the least cost outlay for you. You must mail to a minimum of 75% of the residents, be they business or residential in a given carrier walk route. A carrier route is one of many that the mail man delivers to in a given zip code. The type of direct mail addressing the recipient would receive would be “Dear Occupant” and you will be blanketing a given area the size of which is dependent on your choices.

If you must reach a specific audience: Should you need to aim your direct mail at a potential client within a given field or demo or to a subscription list, then you will be looking at additional postal rates due to the fact that you will be less likely to fulfill any of the best presort rates such as “saturation”. In that case all you can do is to make sure that your direct mail company is adding everything possible in the addressing to lower your rates, such as bar code and zip append.

How you can reach your intended audience for less: When you purchase a direct mail list for a specific demo or audience it can become more price, especially as compared with an “occupant” list. One way of avoiding higher costs would be to choose a zip or carrier routes in a locality that is typical of your customer model. If you are looking to appeal to upscale clients with high incomes, then an “occupant list” for Beverly Hills would get you the same results as if you chose a demographic list based on incomes. The later would more than likely not only be at a minimum 4-5 times more costly to purchase as a direct mail list, but also not satisfy “saturation” requirements and more than doubling your postage costs.

Another feature that Printing By Design can provide to you is Co Mailing. Depending on the variables of your magazine or catalog, re pages, size, etc., it may qualify for “Co Mailing”. If it qualifies, your piece would ship to a destination hub where it may mail with a couple of million or more pieces for the absolute best rates possible. You will pay for trucking to the hub, but even after deducting that cost you are still left with a hefty savings on your postage.

I hope this information leads to your better understanding of the benefits of direct mail and how you can work within the requirements to make your project a cost effective one. We would love to hear from you concerning your commercial printing and direct mail marketing requirements. Please Contact Us Now by visiting us at Printing by Design.

Getting Your Message Out In A Tough Economy In these tough economic times the clever will survive and others will not. What are you doing about the marketing of your company, product, service, book or magazine? If nothing, you WILL be passed in the road of progress by your competitors and at the end of the day they will dominate and not you. YOU CAN DOMINATE your niche if you spend the time and effort in order to do so. He who hesitates……what? If you hesitate to insure that you are in the forefront of your market only insures failure. There are no rewards for laggards and late starters and there surely are no rewards for simply participating as your teachers may have suggested.

This is real life and real life calls for solid business planning and marketing or progress will befall your competitors and not you.

So, the question begging to be asked is “how can I promote my company or product?” The answer is a well rounded package utilizing all of the tools available to you and that reach the intended customer in your niche market. To start, here are some key points: 1- Define your niche market: Who is your client base, what are their habits, what appeals to them?

Where do they get their information?

2- Define the benefits and guarantees: Do this with clear language, utilizing both K.I.S.S. (keep it simple stupid) and the U.S.P. (universal language of sales). Offer a guarantee, which you probably already do, but make it a part of your “offer”. Describe its benefits and why it will work for the customer.

Make your selling points concise and well ordered: Clearly define your product or service as to the benefits folks will have using or receiving it. The U.S.P. requires that you never offer, but suggest the benefits of your product or service. People want to know what is in it for them. They could care less about what you “offer” and for G’s sake forget that old “mission statement” nonsense.

3- Research which types of marketing can potentially benefit you: Can you get out your message with commercial printing and direct mail? Is a postcard enough for your message or do you need a brochure or even a catalog? Should you include social networking and utilize Face Book, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Squidoo, Plus 1 or a myriad of others? Would you expect blogging to appeal to your customers or just a great poster printing to hang in the window of your business?

4- Experiment first in smaller areas: Testing allows refining: Try a small direct mail marketing approach using a small postcard. The 4 x 6” size, while small is the least costly postage. It takes only 200 cards to qualify for direct mail pre sort rates. It is not expensive to send out 5,000 or so cards and you can even have five or so different versions with different messages on the back in order to test each one on a limited post card printing and mail marketing trial. If you get a 2% return or better, you have hit on a workable postcard printing solution for your business.

5- Define the habits of your customer base (market research): What is it that they purchase and how do they use it. Ask for testimonials to use in your campaign. Nothing beats a testimonial to include in your layout when brochure printing or any other form of printing and mailing.

6- Research where your typical customer finds their information: What do they read and do they participate in any of the social networking venues or how do they find what they purchase? Ask questions and then go there with your marketing.

7- Plan your marketing campaign: After thorough testing of several of your marketing avenues, plan your campaign. If you are able to cross market using several you will create a larger impact on your brand and your message. If your market responds to commercial color printing formats, as posters, brochures, flyers, postcards, etc. make use of them, as they are very cost effective. Be sure that your images and copy are of equal quality. If you are using the social networks and or a web property, make sure those things are prominent on your color printing materials. Have a “call to action” and ask people to “call now”, “act now” and make sure they clearly understand how it benefits them when they deal with you. Keep in touch with your customer base with a regular newsletter printing about current doings in your company and any new products.

8- Submit your information: Submit articles and press releases to ezines, magazines and newspapers talking about not just your product but about your current promotion and marketing it. If you are doing a direct mail marketing campaign with a flyer, postcard or catalog, talk about that as well and do this at regular intervals.

9- Act: The main thing to understand is that nothing comes to he/she who waits. Get out there and go get it. Market your product and services and make your customers and potential customers aware of your product or services and how it benefits them. This economy too shall pass but the question is who will be left standing strong when it does?

We hope you have found this information of use and should any of our commercial color printing services fit in with your marketing plans, we are here to help you put the whole package together. You can benefit from our excellent and cost effective graphic design, color printing services, direct mail and marketing. We look forward to hearing from you. Contact Us Now by visiting us at Printing By Design, and request a quote to find out how you can benefit from web printing your magazine, book or catalog with PBD!

How Do I Tell The Difference Between One Printing Company And Another?

There are a variety of “printing company yardsticks” to use and many depend on the variables of your color printing project. Printing companies vary greatly with capability and equipment, labor costs, rents depending on what part of the country they are in and unfortunately in some cases how their business is run. If their business is well down, you may be looking at a printing press that will sell cheap due to the need for cash flow, but also more than likely have ill maintained equipment and your color printing job may pay the price that you did not pay at the beginning. Let’s take a look at some of the ways that you can tell if the printing service you are getting is appropriate or if the printing quote is accurate.

Printing Press Capability: As I mentioned above, all printing companies are not created equal and it is important if you want the best and most professional quality printing that you first look at the capabilities of the printing presses that you are considering. It is just like buying shoes; buy a size too small and the fit stinks and more than likely you will be tossing them out. It is the same with printing companies. You want to be sure that the job you seek to be done fits the printing company that is providing you with the printing quote and then running the job at their shop. Example: If your job is for magazine printing and therefore a sizable run and page count, then the only place you want to see a printing quote from is a printing press with web printing capability. On the other hand if you are producing a short run for catalog printing you would choose a sheet fed printing company. Book printing does not require the same equipment or the better quality printing of a heat set press and in that case your best bet for price and appropriate quality is a web printer with a cold set one. In any event “if the printing press fits, us it”!

Printing Services: This is a pretty straight forward issue; if you find a printing company who answers all of your questions, provides solutions you were not even aware existed and is generally available to you and providing your emails and questions are answered professionally and expeditiously then you in the long run have found a printing company that over time will save you more money than the cheapie printing companies without such quality printing service.

Quality Of Printing: Do not ever be shy about asking for samples and who else the printing company prints for. You have every right to a visual inspection of the print work that the printing shop produces. However do allow the printing companies you ask this of for some slack in what they send you as they are printers and not sample warehouses, as they may not have a sample of everything that they have ever produced. You may have to settle for a few samples to show you with exactitude what it is you will be getting that is similar. For example, one magazine may have the text you want to reproduce and another may have the cover.

Printing Quote And Printing Price: Of course you cannot totally get away from paying attention to the printing price of the quotes you receive. Whether it is due to the location, capability or other factors the printing quotes that you receive may vary widely for any of the reasons mentioned and more. One rule of thumb the old time print buyers at corporations used to use, and sadly there are few left in these economically trying times, was to never accept the lowest quote. I guess they felt that it was not a safe bet. One thing I will tell you is that if you do get multiple quotes, please compare them. Many times magazine printers, or book printers and others may substitute size, paper, and binding styles and vastly different turnaround times to produce your catalog or magazine based upon what they can efficiently produce at their printing shop. If you do not

adequately compare the specifications from all of the printing companies providing you with a printing quote, you may wind up with a good printing price, but in the end not get what you want.

The Bottom Line: Here is what I would like to impart with you as a final suggestion: If you plan to print somewhat regularly, and have found a printing press with the capabilities and printing services that can accommodate all of your requirements, choose the magazine printer, catalog printer or web printer that you feel the most comfortable with due to the whole package of price, printing service, capability and one you feel understands what you are trying to accomplish and work with you in order to fulfill those requirements. In the long run a relationship with this kind of printing company will save you the most money, as well as saving you from the stress from dealing with printing companies who will not meet all of your requisites.

I hope I have shed a bit of light on the process of dealing with printing companies and garnering printing quotes easier for you. We would love to hear from you concerning your commercial color printing requirements. Please Contact Us Now by visiting us at Printing by Design, and request a quote to find out how you can benefit from doing business with our color printing company; PBD!

My Book: How Do I Bind Thee? Let Me Count The Ways!

You just finished your book and it is wonderful! It is everything you wanted it to be and now you want to share your book and the story of your life with the rest of the world. The big question arises for you: How the heck do I get this puppy printed and what is the best book printing methodology to meet my demanding requirements? Well, I will tell you: There are several ways, which can usually be addressed by budget, restrictions of what a seller or library will accept, how you see your story presented, whether in a richly decorated style “that it deserves” or in the most economical fashion. Unfortunately as only you can answer much of that, I will not delve into which would be best for you, but only what is available to you, as that truly is where my book printing expertise extends as a humble book printer.

My intention is to address the finished book as it may be bound and exclude the other processes that lead up to the bindery stage in order to help the reader, when discussing with us or any other book printing company, what bindery style best suits you. Here is a list of the basic bindery styles in book printing that you may have available from Printing by Design or another: 1-Case Bound with Dust Cover (or without): Case binding is also referred to as “hard cover binding” by your book printer and can be sewn or glued. There are two types of sewn bindings with one being the “Smythe sewn”, which is done by sewing through the signatures of the book which may be 32, 48 or 64 pages in smaller books or on larger web printing book presses. A second pass is then accomplished by sewing the signatures together and then gluing, usually with PUR, very strong glue, into the spine of the cover. The second style, sometimes used for loose pages that are not printed in signatures as well as those that are is a side stitching along the top near the spine prior to gluing. The cover consists of heavy board material, typical is 88 pt, which can be wrapped in a cloth, vinyl, leather or imitation material and is sealed over on the inside by “end sheets”.

2- Case Bound Text Book or Children’s Book Style: This is essentially the same as above, but a gloss C1S label sheet is “laminated” (adhered) to the boards, with usually a gloss lamination on top. If a children’s book with a small page count the stitching used will be the top stitching.

3-Perfect Bound: A/K/A “Pocket book” or “paperback” binding. While this can be top stitched, it is usually not and the signatures, or loose sheets if run on a Docutech digital book printing machine are glued to a “soft cover”, which can be anywhere from 10 to 14 points in thickness. Some Libraries for purposes of wear, will purchase perfect bound books and glue them into hard cover cases. In order to utilize perfect binding your book must have a minimum of a one eight of an inch spine for the glue to adhere without any form of stitching.

4-Perfect Bound with Notch Binding – Same as the perfect binding as above with actual notches ground into the spine of the text so that the glue better adheres. Most large book printing companies will have this available, but do not expect this at the smaller digital book printing companies due to the level of bindery equipment they maintain at their book printing company.

4-Wire-O: Wire-O, also called twin loop book binding is similar to spiral, except that when you look at it, you will see it in a series of two wires. Book printers prefer this as it costs and thus sells for the same as spiral but it is a faster process.

The standard material is metal and does come in colors where spiral also comes in plastic. The spine of the book is punched along the top edge in order to run the wires through. The wires are then “crimped” into place.

5-Hidden Wire-O: The same process as above, but the covers are first bent backwards and around so that the front cover is now on the underside of the book. This requires a single sheet, as in perfect bound books unlike standard Wire-O where the front and back covers are separate ones. When the front cover is bent around to the back side of the book, the holes are punched and the wires installed and crimped. The front cover is then pulled back around with the net

result being that the wires are not showing on the front or the spine, thus giving the spine of your book the look of a perfect bound book printing and also allowing copy on the spine. This process also will require die scoring of the cover along all of the fold areas in order to work properly.

6-Spiral: Spiral bound books are the same as Wire-O, except once the holes are drilled the wire circulates from one end of the spine to the other in order to bind the book. In my opinion it is a cheaper and more ordinary look than Wire-O. 7-Comb: This is truly the “800 pound gorilla in the room when it comes to bindery styles in book printing. It is a plastic round coil, with large “combs” at each side, much larger than spiral that fits into the once punched slots of the text. You are then left with a round outer edge of which its sole advantage is to allow for the printing on the spine. This type of binder offers a “lay flat” style, as do Wire-O and Spiral bound books and generally you see this more from copy shop book printing than from mass book printing companies.

8-Saddle Stitch: This is what you see in your average magazine, where two staples are “stitched through the outside of the spine and secure at the inner centerfold so that the staples are seen on the outer spine edge from the top rather than the closed points. Small booklets can have only one staple, larger can have three, but the usual is two staples.

9-Loop Stitch: This is a form of Saddle Stitching, except for the top of the staple used to stitch the booklet with being extended so as there is a “loop” or “hook” away from the spine edge. This can be used for a calendar for hanging purposes or for a booklet, using three “loops” to slot into a three ring binder should you not want to drill holes and additionally be able to cleanly remove it from the binder.

The above represent the modern choices in book printing for bindery. We hope that you have found this information about book binding styles useful and should you have any questions as to which is best for your requirements we look forward to hearing from you. Please Contact Us Now by visiting us at Printing by Design, and request a quote to find out how you can benefit from printing books with PBD!

So You Want To Start A Magazine?

There are a variety of reasons people want to start magazines. Some in order to capitalize on the coupon magazine advertising business, others to pursue a particular cause, some to inform with local, regional, national or international coverage and many just to provide good entertainment. There are many types of magazine business models: Free give away with income derived from advertising, magazines for sale that may or may not derive additional income from advertising, or online ones.

Some of the things you will need to add to a to-do list are as follows if you desire launching your own magazine:

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Decide what your magazine will be about – You may already have that in hand, but if not consider who you want to appeal to as the “readership” of your magazine and who you want to reach with your message or information. Define your niche and how large or small it is as that will decide how you approach the magazine printing with both page count and quantity.

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Consider the design elements that are important to you – Is your cover impactful and “eye candy”? Does the design style you choose fit with what your niche audience would consider hip or in good taste? What are appropriate printing specs that are sufficient for your niche? Here is where your magazine printing company can be of great help as you can review paper stocks, inks, sizes, page counts and more prior to getting your printing quote.

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How do you envision garnering advertisements? – Do you have a competent sales person(s) to solicit for you and are you prepared to print collateral materials so that they are armed with samples of what you propose to publish with your magazine?

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Decide on how you will handle advertising – Will you be relying on your advertisers to provide you with “print ready layouts” that should be based on your sizing and other magazine printing requisites or will you be offering graphic design services and do this for them.

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Have you planned how and who will be writing your articles? – Are they or you expert in the niche you are creating for your magazine? You cannot be all things to all people so focus on your niche. Write for the reader and not yourself.

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Do you have a website where you can promote your magazine? - Having one not only helps to promote your magazine but it also serves your sales team when they offer the issue online as well, thus giving not only your readership extra benefits but your advertisers as well as they see their same ad as in print also online.

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Are your articles in sync with the available businesses who can advertise? Will your content appeal to their clientele and thereby give them a reason to read your magazine as well as reinforce the rational to visit your advertisers’ store?

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Have you considered how to price your advertisements? - This is important to clearly understand before you start your magazine printing run, you have an exact idea of your costs right down to how many pages you will need to fill with advertising in order to break even and then a profit? Have you considered how much a single page of advertising should sell for? Before you can do this you will need to understand your cost per page based on your magazine printing signatures as well as run quantity? As this is something I have covered in prior blogs I will not address it hear, other than you should be filling a complete signature when you print as if not, those additional pages will cost you more than the others when you are printing magazines. Go over this with your magazine printing company and remember there is nothing wrong with having less pages and claiming a sold out issue of advertising space.

I hope this information has given you food for thought about magazine printing and starting your own periodical and that it was useful and of interest. We would love to hear from you concerning your commercial color magazine printing requirements. Please Contact Us Now by visiting us at Printing by Design, and request a printing quote to find out how you can benefit from doing business with our color web printing company PBD!

So You’ve Been Hacked! Now What?

By now I am sure you are aware that LinkedIn has been hacked. Your big question is, like most things in life; “how does it affect me”? Your next one is; “what can I do”? 6.5 million passwords were stolen and posted on the internet by the hacker who stole them so that other hacker buddies could help him figure them out, or crack them. 165,000 were cracked.

A company called Rapid7 who are security experts analyzed the final cracked ones and deduced which passwords were used most often. The case in point: Don’t use common or simplistic passwords. The most common one used was link, and others were job, work, face, 1234 in addition to curse words.

What Can I Do? Here is a list of some suggestions for setting your new passwords.

1-Change them on all of your online accounts, as if they got the first one from LinkedIn, you were more than likely using the same password on other sites.

2-Stay away from passwords related to the website such as “link” for LinkedIn. 3-Do not use simplistic ones, such as “work” or “job”.

4-Do not use straight numbers.

5-Do not create passwords about someone familiar to you or about yourself. If someone knows you or researches you, you are giving them “password hints”.

6-Do not use the same password for every site you utilize. Simplistic sites, that if hacked and cannot come back to bite you it is OK to use something simpler, but for your bank account or others like it, make it complex and mix and match numbers, letters, caps, lowercase and upper numerical keys such as @#$% for your important accounts.

7-Do not use common words spelled backwards, abbreviations or common misspellings 8-Never use personal information such as your birthday or drivers license.

9-If you use many passwords, companies like Keepass can encrypt and store them for you: http://keepass.info/ 10-Check your password to see if it is strong, using Microsoft: https://www.microsoft.com/security/pc-

security/password-checker.aspx 11-Don’t store your important passwords on your computer. I keep mine on a separate, and non computer connected USB drive along with a print out. If you are ever personally hacked, your keystrokes can become visible.

12-Change your passwords regularly and do so about every three months.

Stay safe, change your passwords I hope you have found this information helpful as that was my intention and you can find similar help from us should we have the pleasure of printing your books, magazine printing, catalogs or other commercial printing project. Contact Us Now by visiting us at Printing By Design, and request a quote to find out how you can benefit from web printing your magazine, book or catalog with PBD!

The Color Printing Processes and How Each Benefits You There are many different color printing techniques in the world of commercial printing today and the biggest problem print buyers face may be simply how to understand and then choose which of these printing press techniques best suits your requirements. By understanding this and directing your print work to a printing company that offers specific equipment that best suits your needs, ultimately gives you the print customer the best quality and the best pricing. It all comes down to this: If you want a perfect fit that affords both, “don’t try and cram a size 8 foot into a size 7 shoe”. The shoe will not fit comfortably and probably not wear as well, insuring the wearer of a short and economically poor lifespan. It is the same with commercial printing or as that gold commercial on TV at the moment, with a bit of a twist, “the right press, at the right time, right now”.

As I stated in my opening, if possible choose a printing company with a press that is best suited to produce your magazine, catalog, poster or whatever the item is you require to be printed. Therefore let’s take a look at the varying technologies that a printing press may have at its disposal in order to produce your print job.

Sheet Fed Color Printing: Sheet Fed printing as the name implies, sends one sheet at a time through the printing press. The ink is transferred from the ink fountains to the four plates for CMYK process printing and then from there to a rubber “blanket”. It is the blanket that makes contact with the paper ergo the name “offset” printing. Many of the modern sheet fed printing presses are so called “digital printing” presses, in that they no longer use film and the printed material is transferred by laser directly onto the plates. Sheet fed presses can be four color printing in CMYK, as well as five or six colors, should you require a “spot” Pantone color or a varnish as opposed to Aqueous coating that is a separate unit from the print hubs.

Sizes vary, but the standard press sizes are 14 x 20”, 19 x 25”, 20 X 28” and 28 x 40”. Packaging manufacturing printing presses can be upwards of 80-90 inches or more, but these are very costly to run and unless you are producing boxes, this press is not an everyday machine for standard print items.

The question then remains, how do you know which one is best for your job? The answer is dependent on the size and page count of the print job you need to be produced. If you have a 12 page booklet, the 28” press is very efficient, especially if our quantities are not too large. If so the 40” may offer you better pricing. With a 16 page document of letter size, the 40” an print that on a single form, thus beating out the smaller press competition. Sheet fed presses are fine for items that generally do not require more than 2-3 forms/signatures and print not more than 5-6,000 pieces of a multi page document. For single page forms or those items that can print multi up on a sheet, the sheet fed quantity may go well into five figures and still be cost effective.

Web Printing: These presses are built for speed and volume. There are two types, based on the paper they run: Cold Set web printing utilizes uncoated papers because as the name implies it does not have a heater to set the inks required for coated stocks. The other is Heat Set web offset color printing and is used for printing coated paper stocks as the name clearly implies. If you require a higher line screen than a Cold Set press can offer, some printing companies will print uncoated stock on the Heat Set web press. Do not count on them printing on any uncoated stock that is not a quality offset paper.

Like sheet feed, there are a variety of sizes, based on printing signatures for web printers. Full web is 16 pages on average, half web, as the name implies can produce 8. Large run documents of 8 pages or less may produce more cost effectively on a half web as the start up costs are well less than on a full. There is also a quarter web which produces an 11 x 17 form. Didde is the brand most recognized for these smaller machines. High volume label printing is also done on a very narrow roll stock web printing machine.

Web printers print from large “car sized” rolls of paper stock at very high speeds. It also explains why many stocks, especially the “designer oriented” high end ones are not available, as they are not produced on rolls. Web presses are built for speed and standardization, including some variety of roll sizes. Do not fight the tide at midnight, as you will always want to swim downstream when using a web printer, as these presses are built for limited functionality: large run color publications.

Ink Jet Printing: One of the newer technologies and actually superior to offset, but the costs are such that its only value is for the very short run production. It utilizes a technology of inks being jetted onto the paper substrate. The color printing tends to be more vivid than offset, but the paper choices are very limited, from plain offset, gloss, dull, vinyl or canvas.

Indigo Color Printing: Indigo presses were invented by Benny Landa from Israel and it was the first high end and short run color printing press.

It functions by using small color particles which are suspended in imaging oil and are fixed to the paper by electric voltage. In its day, prior to the iGen, it was the closest pure digital printing (no plates, no film) to offset printing in quality. Indigo is great for small runs only and when you are in a hurry for a quick print fix as the cost is expensive as compared to offset once quantities rise.

IGen Press: The IGen is the modern extension of what started as the Fiery, and then the Docucolor press from Xerox. In all cases they use toner and not ink. It like the Indigo is pure digital printing as it does not use film or plates, but affixes toner with fuser oil to the paper. With the advent of the IGen press, coated paper stocks could be utilized and with quality. Some unscrupulous printing companies will try and use coated stocks on the Docucolor, but it was never meant for that and the end result in my opinion is inferior. Canon also makes a similar machine to the IGen and the quality of that is slightly superior in my opinion. These color printing machines are great for short run, limited to a sheet size of approximately 14 x 19” and are exceptionally well suited to print color books or multi page documents up to maybe 500 approximately depending on final size and page count. Another benefit of them is easy page imposition, automatic duplexing (printing both sides of the sheet at the same time) and collation.

All of the above color printing presses offer great advantages to the customer so long as you utilize each for what they were best intended for. However the new Nanotechnology Printing invented by Benny Landa of Indigo fame, may well retire all of the above once it becomes generally available.

I hope you have found the above useful and of interest. We would love to hear from you concerning your commercial color printing requirements. Please Contact Us Now by visiting us at Printing by Design, and request a quote to find out how you can benefit from doing business with our color printing company PBD!

What To Expect From Your Printing Company (and what not to) & The Lingo You Need You have this pending commercial printing job coming up for your company’s catalog but you are not sure what to expect when you approach the color printing companies you will be contacting for a printing quote. You do not fully understand the “lingo of printing companies”, nor what you should be expecting from them but also what not to expect. Let’s take a look and see if we can address that here for you.

Printing Company Lingo: The language of printing is precise and if you want to have a magazine, catalog, book or poster printed exactly to your liking or being done exactly as it was printed before then it is important to not only understand the “lingo” but to convey that same language in the form of the printing company specifications of your choice at all times. Let’s then take a look at some of the main ones: • • •

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Make sure printer has all of your contact information (I have done many a ghost printing quote).

Name the item exactly: is it a book, poster, catalog magazine or pair of shoes?

How many. Pick the quantity you think you need rather than rely on someone who does not understand your business. The quantity can be bracketed for three quantities. Proper etiquette is three and not a dozen. Most folks never think of the fact that quotes take time and cost money to produce.

Page count: How many pages from the bind edge as you turn each page? The first page is page one and the second is page 2. Commercial printers do not work from sheets, but from page count and size.

Finished size, after trimming and any folding: This is the size of your product as it would be delivered to you.

Flat size or printer spread: The open size of your piece or bound size of your book, magazine or catalog.

Printer’s spread: If designing two page spreads a “printer’s spread” represents the two pages as they would lay out on a parent sheet and NOT consecutive pages. If you need to construct printer’s spreads, take sheets from a small pad, each sheet representing four pages, fold them and number them based on your final page count. Open each sheet and the numbers will portray the actual printer spread you would construct. Example: if 96 pages, the outer spread would be 96 left and 1 to right. With today’s imposition software at the printing press, do not do spreads. You will only cause confusion.

Text paper stock: The paper for the inside of your book or magazine if it differs from the cover stock. Also any stock that is of text weight and not cover weight.

Cover paper stock: If a cover is different from the text, then this would be the paper call out and also if printed on any cover stock weight for a non periodical or book.

Ink colors: The quantity and type of inks for your catalog, poster, folder etc. 4/4 would mean four colors on each side of the page. This would imply process CMYK inks as if you require Pantone Matching inks, you would need to specify that.

Coating: Any coating applied on top of the ink from Varnish/Aqueous (synonymous) or UV.

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Bleed: A bleed is created by pulling the background or any item in the foreground as well that you want trimmed to the edge, beyond the edge. For sheet fed 1/8” is standard but for web ¼” is.

Perfect bind: A glue bind of all of the signatures with a squared back. Commonly called a “soft cover book”, with standard covers between 10-14 pts. A minimum of 1/8” spine is required.

Saddle stitch bind: Or stitched, refers to the typical magazine printing bindery with two staples through the center of the book, placed from the outer edge to the inner.

Printing Company Requirements, Expectations and Exclusions: The requirements set forth in your printing quote by the company stipulate what you must provide in order to have a problem free and quality commercial printing experience. If the customer does not follow these steps which are usually outlined in the printing quote, than you may be liable for additional costs to make the file “output ready” as well as for additional proofing or other processes as a result there from.

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Output ready disk: This means that the disk or file you upload to the printing company is ready for output by the pre press department and is free of any problems or errors as well as being spell checked.

From a professional graphics application: Microsoft Word is not a “professional graphics application” nor is Microsoft Publisher for that matter. Printing companies do not have these programs at pre press and cannot output your files using them.

PDF files: Most commercial printing companies today, especially web printers require that you provide a PDF file made to their specifications which they will inform you of in advance. The reason for this is accuracy and ease of work flow at pre press.

Shipping: All printers will supply a shipping quote upon request. In every instance it is an estimate and until the job is complete it is not possible to count in every variable that may occur such as “overs”, also called “additionals”, meaning that there was a press over run or sometimes an under run on your printing job.

Color: Color on commercial printing presses is usually guaranteed as “pleasing color” and not “exact color” as the variables from one press to next, one paper type to another can vary. This is even written on the Pantone books, which portray the colors of “exact pre mixed inks”.

Cracking of bind edge: Most printers today use a rotary score which has replaced the need to die score a fold line. 100# text weight and up require scoring. Heavy board stocks may require die scoring which is an offline process. Dark inks will exaggerate paper cracking, so if you do not want to pay for die scoring, at least lighten up on the ink colors or do not have inks traverse the spine. Otherwise you can expect to see some cracking on the edge.

“Overs”: Most printers, especially the web offset printing companies, will stipulate in their quote that the quantity is subject to overs or unders (undercount) of anywhere from 2-10 percent depending on the type of press and printed material. Book printing usually stipulates ten percent overs, so factor this in among your costs. In any event you are getting product to match the increased price.

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Shipping: Smaller jobs are carton packed and then packed on pallets if enough cartons for ease of shipping. Most web printers will quote as “skid packed”, so if you need cartons for storage, or if a small booklet, you will need to request a price for carton packing. So you can compare, you can request skid packing with a per thousand price for cartons as a line item extra.

Help and guidance: You should expect to be able to talk with an “expert” who understands what you are trying to accomplish and guide you to the best conclusions based on your overall needs.

Do not describe your content, how many words, etc. as these are not relevant in printing terms, but your goals for the final printed piece and its cost to you.

Design: Most commercial printers are capable of designing your book or magazine and offer an unspoken guarantee: The can design trouble free layouts and create trouble free files, which vexes many designers and can cost you more money at press. Do expect to pay extra for this, as your printing quote will be based on an “output ready disk”. Other specialties of the printer may include photography, logo and branding as well as direct mail marketing.

Mailing: Many printing companies today offer direct mail marketing and fulfillment services. It is more cost effective to you the buyer, to utilize their services as they are not only done inline but without the expense of trucking.

Hopefully this will make your next venture into the world of commercial printing more comfortable for you. We would love to hear from you concerning your commercial color printing requirements.

Please Contact Us Now by visiting us at Printing by Design, and request a quote to find out how you can benefit from doing business with our color printing company; PBD!

What You Need To Know BEFORE Looking For That Printing Quote This one will be short and sweet as I will simply cover some basics that will help you to get the printing quote you seek in the shortest possible time and with the most accurate results. This will not necessarily be how you can find the cheapest printing quote, or the printer with the best quality, but more specifically, how you can best communicate with printing companies.

The first thing you will want to address is what is the item you are looking for specifically? Don’t just start rambling off specs, as that is too circuitous and it is best if the conversation, whether in email, printing quote form or on the telephone, can start by centered around the item you want. This way the printing company professional, know where to take the conversation from the start and will be able not just to understand what you need but to make suggestions that best fit the item you want. If it is printing magazines or book printing that you want, that should be the very first thing you tell your professional printing partner.

The next thing up at bat should be the quantity before you go any further. This tells the printing company which type of equipment the conversation should be centered around. If you are printing one million catalogs, then web printing is the only choice to discuss. If it is for 200 books than your printing quote would be based on either running on a digital printing press due to it being the best equipment for the best possible price. By establishing a quantity, you keep the conversation focused on the limitations or abilities of a given technology. The reason for this is to work with the printing press and “always swim downstream” for the best results and pricing for your commercial printing quote.

Let’s talk page count and I do not mean how many sheets of paper, how many four page sections or any other similar verbiage. As Detective Friday used to say on Dragnet, the TV show, “I want the whole truth and nothing but the truth” and the only way you are going to get there is to keep the conversation about page counts rather than trying to wear your printing company hat and try and second guess how the job will be printed. You will be wrong in most cases. What you want to do is center all of the information you are looking to pass on to the printing company for your quote around the finished product and not how you THINK it will be produced or what you THINK the magazine printer or book printer wants to hear. Keep the conversation to what you want delivered to your doorstep. Thus a “page”, is one side of the sheet of paper from the spine out in the finished catalog or brochure. When you flip it over to read it that is the “next page”. Additionally once the printing company knows your page count, along with quantity he is very close to having a conceptual understanding of what you seek and suggestions to be made that may save you money or provide you with a better quality poster, brochure or magazine.

Size does matter for your printing quote! Once the printer has the size, quantity and page count there is supreme clarity of how your printing job should be produced and which printing press will give you the best quality printing results and quote. Once you pick the size you think best for your book, magazine or newsletter, do allow the printing company professional to make suggestions to other sizes as you will always wind up with the best and most cost effective printing quote once you are allowing the printer to suggest the best size for the particular printing press in question. Again, you will be swimming downstream, unless your heavier wallet due to your print savings drags you down.

Last of all let’s address the paper you choose for your printing quote. Not all paper is all things to all printing presses, or something like that. Web offset printing presses cannot run more than a 9 pt. cover. Sheet fed printing presses cannot run thinner than 60# coated text stocks. Also many custom designer and brand papers are not available to web printing presses. Therefore you need to understand that your paper choices may be held hostage to the rest of your printing specifications if you seek a professional quality printing job with a printing quote that is cost effective.

I am hoping you have found this information useful so that your next contact with a commercial printing company offers you a better understanding as well as increases the ease in order to facilitate your printing quote. We would love to hear

from you concerning your commercial color printing requirements. Please Contact Us Now by visiting us at Printing by Design, and request a quote to find out how you can benefit from doing business with our color printing company; PBD!

There Are Various Printing Press Technologies: Which One Benefits Me? There are various printing technologies that printing companies employ. The question arises, how do I benefit from the technology that your printing company offers? Which technology that each printing company utilizes benefits me? Not all of them will be of benefit to you so understanding the types of commercial printing press technologies becomes important as each will impact on your printing job in different ways and usually only one of them will benefit your particular printing job at all. Therefore let’s review all of the major printing press technologies in order to allow you to seek the best one for your printing job.

Offset printing: This technology is the most common form of printing press technology and is distinguished by the image first transferring to a plate and then to a rubber blanket, and finally to the printing surface. It was first created for the reproduction of artistic works and is now the primary process by which most things that are printed utilize. Sheet fed and web printing presses both use offset printing technology. Most books, magazines, catalogs, brochures and posters are created using this process. Therefore most of your requirements will be filled by offset printing as well.

Ink is delivered to the ink train, a duct that carries the ink to the rollers. The rollers distribute the ink to the plate and then the plate transfers the inks to the blanket which is what makes contact with the paper.

Advantages Offset printing will offer you the following advantages.     

Consistency of your printing materials Fast and easy plating Long impression rates due to long life of the plates Best priced method for medium and longer runs Adjustment to color and density on press

Disadvantages Offset printing has the following disadvantages.  

Plates cannot or should not be re-used due to oxidation Set up times can be longer than pure digital and set up costs on these printing presses will be more.

Inkjet Printing: This type of printing press takes a digital image and copy created on a computer and by propelling or jetting droplets of ink onto the paper, creates the printed material. Your desktop printer, if inkjet typifies this technology.

Advantages:  

The quality and colors are superior to offset printing as it is a newer technology It prices well for short run printing

Disadvantages:  

It prices poorly for medium to long run printing Far less paper choices come in the rolls required for inkjet printing

Laser Printing: Laser printing technology can produce high quality graphics on either plain or coated papers. The most common form of laser printing press is the photocopier in your office. Today, the higher end machines made by Xerox with the iGen or Canon with their iGen equivalent can produce books, magazines and catalogs of equal quality to offset printing presses. The process used to create an image on paper for this type of printing press by the commercial printer uses a laser beam to project an image onto a drum coated with selenium as a photoconductor. The drum then transfers this to paper. The Docutech printing press is the black only equivalent

of this laser technology. Both the color and black only versions are duplex printers, printing both sides of the sheet at the same time and collating them as well at the end of the printing press process.

Advantages:  

The newer machines can equal commercial offset printing in quality For short run commercial printing the small runs can equal web printing for unit pricing

Disadvantages:   

It prices poorly for medium to long run printing It must use only smooth paper or gloss paper stocks, thus eliminating many eclectic stocks as felts, linens etc.

The Docucolor version cannot accept coatings or film lamination without problems due to the fuser oil used

Indigo Printing: The indigo printing press was an Israeli invention that is an offset printing process. The Indigo printing press has seven ink fountains and therefore is capable of printing process and Pantone inks symiltaneosly. It does not use film nor plates and is a true digital printer as is the inkjet and laser printing presses. It is a perfect press for short run as it can offer you an exact replication of what you would expect on an offset printing press. It therefore is a great printing press to produce your magazines or catalogs for the short run or for prototypes prior to the mass run as it will look the same.

Advantages:  

High quality and equal to offset printing For short run commercial printing the end product will appear as the long run ones.

Disadvantages:  

Most expensive digital printing process and best used for prototypes Must use custom coated papers, making for a more expensive product and with limited paper choices.

These are your modern choices of printing press technologies and I hope this information allows you to make the best choice as to which one best suits your project. All of them are suitable for magazine printing, book printing, catalog printing, brochures and more. The smaller presses are of course limited in size, so you will not be able to produce large posters or presentation folders on the Indigo, or laser press nor the inkjet printing press, not because of size but because of limited paper choices.

If you have found this information of use and should any of our commercial color printing services fit in with your marketing plans, we would love to be of printing service to you. Please consider our color printing services and direct mail and marketing for your next project. We look forward to hearing from you. Contact Us Now by visiting us at Printing By Design, and request a quote to find out how you can benefit from web printing your magazine, book or catalog with PBD!