A colleague who started designing art files for book printing a few years ago asked me to distinguish between layout and paste-up. The question brought to mind all of the changes in the field of design and custom printing over the 34 years I have been in the business. I'll provide an answer for the question my colleague asked, but I will go further to mention some of the other changes I have witnessed.
At some point in your schooling, maybe even in grade school, you probably did some screen printing. Maybe in art class. Using a frame with a stretched nylon screen, perhaps not as fine a mesh as a stocking, you used a squeegie to force printing ink through a stencil attached to the screen and onto the paper below. It’s a simple process, and essentially the same as commercial silkscreen (also known as screen printing or serigraphy).
What do you need to know about printing custom stickers? It seems this would be a fairly straightforward genre of printing, but there are actually a number of things to consider when buying custom stickers (or labels).
No matter how long you’ve been buying custom printing servcies from online printing companies the time will come when something goes wrong. Online printing companies are staffed with human beings, who are fallible, so from time to time it will become necessary to work through a difficult job, to find a solution the digital printing service can provide that will satisfy your needs.
Here’s a trick I once saw at a business printing vendor who was doing large format poster printing for a client of mine. The job in question was a process color poster with a heavy coverage PMS border around a central, full-color image. After having problems with mechanical ghosting, the custom printing service tilted the entire poster on the press sheet. I’d never seen this before; nor have I seen it since. And I’m sure it made for challenges on the trimming equipment.
A client came to me recently with a question about custom pocket folder printing. She and I had been working with a local custom printing service with an HP Indigo digital press. My client had a short-run pocket folder (250 copies) to print, and she wanted to know whether the Indigo would be appropriate. The pocket folder dimensions were 9” x 12” plus a 4” pocket with no build. Could an Indigo print this short-run custom pocket folder job?