Printing Secrets from Print Acumen
Who NOT To Trust for
Printing Advice.
Here's the top 7 questions you ask to find out.
Would You Buy Vitamin Supplements From Your Accountant?
A lot of business owners I know have a good working relationship with a graphic designer, and it's natural to assume that, in the business owner’s mind, the graphic designer knows what he is doing when it comes to print buying.
But do they really?
Well, it depends.
NOW is the time to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Let me make a prediction -
I predict that many business owners will read this article and then still not ask their graphic designer the list of questions (when organising some printing) I am about to provide - simply because they want to trust them - and not upset them.
"I've used them for years," they'll say. "And they do a great job with all my company printing"
So they must know what they're doing, right?
WRONG.
Well, not totally.
There are some graphic designers who really do know what they're doing when it comes to actual printing issues - but finding & qualifying the right one can be a daunting task.
Notice the question above in the headline: Would You Buy Vitamin Supplements From Your Accountant?
Why do you think I asked this?
It's to drive my point home. There's a good chance your accountant does use vitamin supplements. A lot of people do.
But would you take his advice on such issues?
After all, he's not a doctor is he? His specialty is accounting. So why listen to him in a field outside his expertise.
What's my point?
It's exactly the same situation with most graphic designers. Their training does not encompass print buying for flyers, brochures, stationery or anything else.
Indeed, students who have completed a 3 year Advanced Diploma course in graphic design at TAFE have had very minimal or no experience at all in prepress or printing issues.
They simply don't know how to prepare a graphic file for commercial printing.
Ok, to be fair, there's a very small percentage who have gone the extra mile and learned this valuable skill so let me hand you a list of questions you can run past them to see if they qualify to handle your print buying:
Question # 1:
What issues arise when printing an A4 report cover in solid dark blue at 100% coverage?
Answer:
Scuffing or marking will occur.
Dark blue is renowned for not completely drying (it's due to the pigment that's used) so a job such as this should always be varnished or laminated. This will stop scuffing ensuring the documents presents well for a much longer period of time.
Question # 2:
At what point in the design stage does the medium need to be taken into account?
Answer:
At the outset.
The type of stock used, the colour, the finish, whether it's an embossed stock, whether it's coated, etc can have a marked affect on the finished look and "feel" of the document.
Question # 3:
What problems result when maximum ink load is exceeded when CMYK printing?
Answer:
Flooding & dot gain.
Put simply, the fine screens used in cmyk printing fill with ink if too much is used. As a result, the dots that create the screen then print larger than they should which changes the colour mix and makes the screened areas appear blotchy or cloudy.
Question # 4:
What problems can arise when reversing a small serif font from a solid printed background with 100% coverage?
Answer:
The fine serifs (the "feet' on the bottom of Times Roman font) will more than likely fill in.
A substantial amount of ink is required to successfully print solid colour with 100% coverage. Sometimes, depending on the quality and condition of the press and the inking/water rollers, fine type and reversed graphics will "fill up" with ink and disappear.
Question # 5:
What is trapping & what's considered the industry standard trapping?
Answer:
In the situation where images of different colour butt up to each other, a small overlap (referred to as trapping) should allowed for, so a white gap does not appear between the two images when minor variations occur in registration.
The industry standard is 0.014 of a millimetre.
Question # 6
How can stock colour & finish affect design style?
Answer:
It can have a significant affect on the colours.
Ink is transparent so the colour of the stock has a substantial impact on the finished colour. For example, if light blue is printed on a yellow stock, it could change the finished colour to green, depending on how dark the blue ink is and how bright the yellow stock is.
Similarly, the same ink colour will appear different on a coated stock than on non coated stock or a smooth finish stock compared to a laid specialty stock
Question # 7:
What affect does bleed have on work & turn production?
Answer:
Bleed is where the printed image is to run off the edge of the sheet. In this situation the image is usually printed 2 to 3mm oversize so when the sheet it trimmed back to finished size, the image does actually run off the edge.
If we're printing say a front & back cover together on the same sheet and each has different images that bleed, a space between the images (usually 5mm & referred to as a double cut) is required so the bleed area can be trimmed off.
Now, if your graphic designers can answer say 5 of the above 7 questions, then stick with them for your printing.
They have a fairly good handle on what they're doing and they could save many thousands of dollars & a lot of heartache over your business life.
But if they can't, just as you wouldn't take advice from any untrained professional (like an accountant to recommend you vitamins) about something they had limited or no training in.
So… don't take advice from your graphic designer about print buying unless you know that he knows what he’s on about. It could cost you a lot of money and heartache.
By the way, I've worked with graphic designers all my working life.
This article is not intended to be derogatory to their profession. They are professionals. They are excellent at what they do. What's more, they are nice people. However... just as an accountant doesn't know much about a specialised field like vitamin supplements - your graphic designer may not be a good source of information for your printing queries.
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