Welcome to a new world of professional printing

It's faster, less expensive, and the quality has never been better!

From a technological standpoint this is the golden age of professional printing, and your printing dollar has never gone farther. The only part of the business people may be nostalgic for is simplicity;  as with most features of modern life technology blurs all the boundaries making your choices harder to see. It has a lot to do with terminology...let's see if we can sort it out.

"Up until the past few years, most of the advances in printshop technology concerned the steps required to make a set of offset plates. Further advances are giving us the ability to print without conventional metal plates, or without plates at all. Let's call the range of options conventional offset, hybrid digital/offset, and 100% digital."

Conventional offset has been covered in past posts (click  here for background).  Hybrid digital/offset simply means that plates are laser-imaged inside the press.  By eliminating laser-imaging of the plates as a separate step, the "getaway" time for hybrid is shorter and the cost of getting to the first good sheet is low. This is a critical step in getting the unit cost of short run offset printing to an affordable level.

100% digital is a horse of another color, and is extending the capability of a modern printshop to shorter runs:

A modern, production grade, digital printer is really an outstanding piece of equipment. Although the fundamental technology is the same as a digital copier, it makes about as much sense to call them "copiers" as it does to call an IPhone a "telephone".  Digital printers produce high quality images at an affordable rate, and the product can be trimmed and folded the same day it's printed.  Here are some things you need to know in order to take advantage of this technology.

Make sure your digital printing is done by a responsible professional.  Digital printing systems vary A LOT in terms of the color they produce, and the quality of their images. This is partly a machine issue (is it a good one?) but mostly a professional service issue. The people who set up the workflows must have a high level of graphics knowledge, and the operators must take care meticulous care of these fragile machines. The machines should be dedicated to the proper kind of work and not used outside their parameters, where the quality could be degraded.

Insist on a proof copy.  It's generally good news that digital printers are calibrated for "pleasing color".  However, keep in mind that this is not a hard and fast standard, compared, for instance, with Pantone inks. If you have corporate colors, or you think it's important to maintain consistency across your printed products, this may be a chance to go astray. The only way to know, and decide if color tweaking is called for, is to see a proof copy before you proceed. Be sure to see a proof copy of a digital printing job just as you would for a longer run to be printed offset.  This leads us to the next critical point.

"So far, what I'm saying is that you should look for a high quality machine being run by serious printing professionals. The concept is that there is a full-fledged shop there, which uses digital printing in its overall production scheme. This insures that the quality standards are high, and that your job will get the support it deserves."

Give careful consideration as to whether your project belongs on a digital printer.  First, nnot every job will fit on a digital printer, so be sure you know the capabilities of the print shop you're looking at. (If your job exceeds 18 inches in width or 12 inches in height you may run out of room.)  For example, if your job has a flat size of 22 inches, and you only need 150 copies,you may have to run offset and be prepared to pay many hundreds of dollars for those 150 copies. If you know this beforehand you can decide whether the design or the budget needs to be adjusted.  Second, not every paper stock is digital compatible.  This is yet another fact you don't want to learn when your job is on deadline.

Finally, don't go digital merely for the sake of new technology.  Although digital printing is particularly cost effective in short runs compared with offset, it's not universally less expensive. The lower cost of getting the job up and running (don't need to make plates, remember?) will eventually be overcome by the higher cost per sheet run through. Also, the sheet size is small, limiting the number-up that can be run. Generally, offset will beat digital, price wise, at about 1,000 copies, depending on the particulars.

"As with everything we discuss here, the best approach is to talk to your vendor before you invest a lot of work in your project. Conversations about paper, color, price, and layout can be fun when you're at a preliminary stage. If you're on deadline, and the job is not turning out the way you hoped, the same topics can be painful. They don't need to be."

The past two posts have had record setting readership at "Your friend in the printing business" and I'm grateful to everyone who has subscribed, or forwarded the link to friends and colleagues. Please remember that this can be a forum to get your questions answered, and that I will attempt a post on any topic you request.

Hugh Butler
Your friend in the printing business

Using the resurrection of customer service to your advantage...your printing vendor's desire to provide value-added services

Bad customer service is so prevalent it's almost taken for granted, and would be if it wasn't so aggravating. Websites and phone systems are in place to thwart you from actually reaching a representative who is both a human being and easy to communicate with.  Can it get any worse? Probably not.

This is why I have been surprised recently by the amount of attention I've been getting from customer service people. My theory is that corporate business focus is shifting from stock price (emphasis on absolute lowest cost of service) to recognition that shareholders will cease to exist if people cease purchasing. On the local level, this shift can be used to your advantage!

As you cope with the current economic pressures, consider that your printing vendor, whether he has told you or not, is pacing the floor thinking of ways to reinforce his relationship with you. It can be mutually beneficial to enlist his help to make your life easier...here are some concrete examples:

• A completed print job must often be distributed to multiple locations. It's very easy for your vendor to package the job accordingly...in whatever quantities are necessary. It's most efficient to do this as the job is packing up, as opposed to devoting your staff time to unpacking and repacking for shipment in the future. For a modest fee, plus actual cost of freight, it may even make sense for your vendor to handle the whole packing and shipping task.
• If your layout is complicated, ask your vendor if he will help make a template.  His assistance may save an hour or two of work, (or rework). In addition, there may be particulars about the actual printed piece which make vendor input desirable, (see my post about folding here).  Our shop even has stock templates here, and will add others you if you need them.
• If your cash sponsorships are drying up, ask your vendor about in-kind support.  The key here is to keep in mind that printers get asked for services gratis all the time, and it's difficult to say "yes" over and over.  What may make it possible is to do the work at wholesale cost, which is about a 50% discount.  This allows them to lend support to a greater number of worthy causes in a way which doesn't break the bank.  (Bear in mind, of course, that this is best done as part of an ongoing relationship.)
• If your project is in the preliminary stage, ask your vendor for a dummy to be made of the paper stock you're considering.  This is probably the most overlooked service printers can provide.  It's also an invaluable bridge as your project makes the inevitable transformation from the digital/virtual world of its birth, to the physical/actual world it'll live in when printed.  Everyone hates surprises...see the paper first if you're not already familiar with it. It's fo' free!
• If you're doing some of your printing in house it's possible you're spending more time trimming it to size than it took to print.  It may be possible to work out an arrangement where your vendor will handle the trimming at a nominal (or no) charge.  What may take you 45 minutes with a hand trimmer may take them less than 10.
• When developing specifications for a quote, have them reviewed in a preliminary way by a single, trusted vendor before you release to your entire list.  This step may save several "update" emails later, as the information evolves by way of vendor feedback.  (My personal favorite, the mistake I make most often, is to omit the quantity!)   Also, always include in the specs an opportunity for suggestions from your vendors, and do this early in the process.  (Vendor input coming too late is of lesser value because it's more difficult to implement.)  

The problem we are all confronting has two sides.  On one side are smart, qualified people spending too much time on the sidelines; and on the other are people stretched to the breaking point because of under staffing.  It makes sense to reach across this gap and capitalize on an existing relationship. Your printing vendor is more receptive than you think to the idea of pitching in to solve your problems.  Give him a call;  maybe have lunch, exchange some good ideas, and work out something new. Let me know how it turns out!

Hugh Butler
Your friend in the printing business