Print Design TipsTips and Information About Printing

Offset printing may still provide the clearest print quality available, but digital printing allows for much faster speed and this may be necessary in a fast-paced, business environment.  Digital printing is not only fast but it is dynamic and susceptible to change in a manner which offset printing is not – making alterations to a work-in-progress can be handled in minutes and not hours or days.

While offset printing still holds the top slot for quality, digital printing is catching up very, very fast and for many projects, the level of quality is perfectly acceptable.  Full-color, high quality marketing brochures may be better left to offset printers, but when you have a constantly changing catalog or a newsletter, you should look to utilize a digital printer instead.

Size & Shape

Digital printing allows for quick and simple customization of sizes being used – offset printing requires the use of standard sizes with labor intensive cutting to size which significantly adds to cost.  It does not matter whether you are producing a poster or business card, an offset printer must use standard sizing and there are limitations on the dimensions in any event; changing between different sized jobs is time consuming and labor intensive, which again serves to dramatically increase the cost to you.

With a digital printer, you can specify virtually any size and any shape – you are only limited by the actual size of the printer capacity, which is not likely to be a practical limitation given modern digital printer sizes available.

Production Time

Digital printing is extremely fast, much faster than offset printing methods and especially so when color printing is involved.  Rush jobs can be handled overnight, even for full-color projects compared to two to three days for traditional offset printing methods.  More than this, digital printers can be changed from one task to another very quickly which also serves to increase turnaround times of multiple items required for one project while the inks used in the digital process are faster drying.

Versatility & Adaptability

Digital printing is run by software which makes it easy to manipulate images and text elements when setting up your piece.  There is no need to make major changes to the printing machine, which is the case with offset printing.  This allows you to play around with effects both virtually and in print so you can see how the finished product will appear when using differing design elements and techniques. This also does not require much in the way of manhours, which serves to keep the cost down even further.

Cost

Digital printing scores over offset printing in terms of cost – all the flexibility and speed of turnaround do not come with a premium but rather, they serve to make the process faster and minimize the involvement of expensive labor. With offset printing, the initial product is usually the most expensive because of the high set-up costs involved, but digital printing provides an evening out of costs throughout the run and removes the heavy direct, fixed costs involved – you end up simply paying for the size of the run with minimal set-up costs involved.

If you are a beginner at graphic design or print design, then there are a few things that you can do in order to get off to a great start. First of all, you should be familiar with the bleeding technique. A bleed is when objects that are printed overlap the border of the document. Once the document is printed, it will have to be cropped so that it can fit onto the paper. It is recommended that you use a 3mm bleed on all four sides.

Next, it is important that you know what the minimum resolution is in order to produce professional images. The short answer to this question is in between 300 to 600 dpi. Whenever you print an image that is at a lower resolution than the original image, it is going to come out at a lower quality, but nobody will be able to tell if this is done correctly.

Another thing that you can do in order to improve your print design is to use a grid. It can help you stick with proportions and provide some helpful composition guidelines. While the three column set up is the most commonly used grid, feel free to experiment. Many people appreciate the different combinations they can achieve with a 7 column grid for example.

Finally, you will want to maintain proper typography. The font that you choose for each piece is a matter that should be carefully thought out instead of being picked at random. It is recommended that you choose 5 or so fonts that you think will be good for each piece, and see what it looks like using each of them.

Finally, it is always a good idea to include your web address in your print work. That way, it will be easier for your business to grow by word of mouth.

These basic concepts will be expounded on in future blog entries.