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Dealing with print is a daily occurrence in the lives of most arts professionals, but few of us have any formal training or real understanding of the printing process. Michael Smith advises how you can get the best out of a printing house.

As someone who straddles the areas of design and marketing, these are some tips that I have shared with colleagues over the years.

Take your pick

First of all, use different suppliers for different scales of work. You wouldn?t ask your local sandwich shop to do the catering for a conference (or vice versa). Buying print works on the same principle. Different suppliers offer different services, including pre-press (translating your computer files into the printable materials) and finishing (cutting, binding, folding, etc). The biggest differences are usually the size of presses that are used and how many colours they can print at one time. For a range of work you need different types of suppliers:

? Small: A high-street franchise will often do for a short run (10,000 copies or less) in one or two colour work up to A3.
? Medium: For a general medium run (10,000 to 60,000 copies), a range of facilities that can cope with anything from black and white leaflets to cheap full colour posters (usually up to A2).
? Medium sized, high quality: You will need a specialist in four, five and six colour and larger runs, with large presses and the experience to deal with more complicated finishing. Perfect for brochures, large runs of leaflets and pamphlets.
? Large format: Cost-effective for posters and very long runs.

For more specialised jobs, you?ll need at least two other regular suppliers:

? Web printer: Very large presses, print on huge rolls of paper (webs) rather than individual sheets. The incredible speed of printing, often on both sides of the paper, needs to be weighed against cost and inflexibility.
? Screen printers ? for printing on fabric and any materials other than paper.

A close partnership

Many people spend a disproportionate amount of their time shopping around for the cheapest way of printing a job. This can save money if you know exactly what you?re doing and are prepared to manage the process and accept the consequences. But most of us would benefit more from a true partnership with our print supplier ? one where they can offer advice at the outset and make the most of the budget available. For instance, you can shop around for days to find the best price for printing a 28 page A6 booklet, but unless you discuss the job with your printer they?re unlikely to tell you that it?s actually cheaper to print 32 pages (as that?s exactly the right number to fit on a sheet of paper and an automatic folding and stitching machine).

So, establish a partnership of trust. Rather than just setting out to find the cheapest price on every job, find the most cost-effective. A good supplier will advise you on when it?s important to spend money and when it?s an unnecessary expense. But you need to be clear that if you cut corners and want the cheapest job possible, then things can go wrong. This is especially true at the proofing stage ? generally the more you spend, the better the quality of the proof. But only you can decide if the time and money invested in a proof is worth the advantages of being able to check the accuracy of the final job.

If you are using a third party (a design company or print farmer) to buy your print, then be clear what you are paying for. Are they responsible for checking the proofs or do you want to see them too? Are you paying the printer directly or paying your supplier? Your supplier will be charging you a handling charge, so use their expertise and take their advice. And don?t be afraid to ask questions.

A realistic timetable

I am often asked about a print run of 50,000 brochures: ?I know it?s going to take eight days to print them all, but can I have the first 50 tomorrow?? As all 50,000 are printed, stage by stage, the answer?s always a polite no. Ask your supplier how long it will take and tell them when your key deadlines are (but build in a couple of days leeway). Figure 1 shows a very simple timetable that will work for most small to medium print jobs with no special finishing requirements.

Another point is don?t misjudge the work involved in looking after the printing of your 200 Christmas cards. The numbers might be smaller but each process is the same as any larger job.

Don?t expect miracles

Armed with a thorough understanding of how the processes work, it is much easier to make informed judgements on how to achieve the best results. And remember, there is no such thing as the perfect print job ? printing is a business of compromise between cost, time and ability.


Michael Smith is Managing Director of The Cogency. t: 020 8694 9997; e: michael@thecogency.com. A copy of the report ?How does print work?
is available at w: http://www.thecogency.com