This month we’re diving into the printing process and sharing it with you! Together we’ll find out what it takes to bring your printing project to life. Most people believe that printing is as easy as pushing a button, however, what we do takes a little bit more work and detail. Before handing you the finished product, there are several things that need to be checked before even taking your project to the printer.

Preflighting:

The process of confirming that the digital files required for the printing process are all present, valid, correctly formatted and of the desired type. We have to make sure that the file that the customer submits will print within our print methods. Another thing to consider but is easily forgotten is the correct color space (RGB vs. CMYK).

Graphics and Fonts:

To avoid any mishaps with the customers’ fonts or graphics, it’s best to send all of the graphics and information at once. Plus it can greatly decrease your graphic design charges and reduce the number of proofs sent. It also helps reduce human errors, like missed emails containing information for having fragmented information sent and getting it to the right job ticket for the graphic designer.

Bleeds, Trims and Margins:

Not everyone knows how or the importance of correctly setting up the bleed on a document. Bleeds ensure that you achieve the desired look and don’t have any empty/white space after the paper is trimmed. Having the correct margins set up is important so that copy doesn’t get cut off or folds don’t split paragraphs, also most things have to be trimmed down from a larger sheet. We don’t buy the pre-perforated stock at office stores, we buy large sheets and cut down to a secondary size that will run the piece economically, then trim that down to a finished size.

Bleeds, Trims and Margins:

Not everyone knows how or the importance of correctly setting up the bleed on a document. Bleeds ensure that you achieve the desired look and don’t have any empty/white space after the paper is trimmed. Having the correct margins set up is important so that copy doesn’t get cut off or folds don’t split paragraphs, also most things have to be trimmed down from a larger sheet. We don’t buy the pre-perforated stock at office stores, we buy large sheets and cut down to a secondary size that will run the piece economically, then trim that down to a finished size.

Efficiency:

We also try to be as efficient as possible by printing things of similar size on certain days of the week. This minimizes the labor spent resetting equipment to fit certain job runs, plus the cost for the customer. For example, #10 business envelopes one day, all 11×17 jobs the next, 9×12 envelopes another day, etc. If jobs were ran as they came in, our prices would be higher to account for all the resetting of equipment. So, if we’ve already run that size for the week, it will have to wait until next week or a rush charge could apply.

After we’ve trimmed the paper and put it together, your project is ready! It sounds like a lot of fine details and it is, but in our hands, it will get done and be exactly what you wanted. If you have any questions or are ready to get your project printed, give us a call!