Due Process
Offset. Digital. Electrostatic. Letterpress. Thermography. Flexography. Screen print. Inkjet. Dye-sublimation. 3-D. Gravure. Xerography. Hectograph. Woodblock. And you thought it was as simple as pressing command+P.
As it turns out, printing is complicated. "There are more printing processes in use today than at any other time in history," said Frank Romano, professor emeritus of the Rochester Institute School of Media Sciences, Rochester, N.Y. "No process dies, it just finds its niche."
That's good news if you're Johannes Gutenberg, still cashing royalty checks from that little "movable type" invention of yours. But if you're in the business of selling print and promotional products, the sheer number of processes can be headache inducing. What supplier should you turn to if your customer wants a four-color process water bottle and web-to-print business cards? What if your client absolutely needs an exact PMS match for its logo? What the heck is a flexo, anyway?
You don't need to be an expert on offset lithography, but if you want to meet your customers' product needs, it pays to know the printing basics. Check out the following list of tips for getting started in the big world of inks, plates and dyes, and you'll be selling faster than you can hit command+P.
1. Not every promotional product can be printed the same way.
Not all materials (substrates, in industry lingo) are created equal. It's the golden rule of printing, the reason there's no single printing process or machine suited for decorating every paper or promotional product.
Let's say your client wants imprinted ceramic mugs, filled with candy that has imprinted wrappers, along with a paper insert to be placed in the mug. A supplier that decorates mugs might not have the necessary equipment to decorate the candy as well—let alone the inserts, which would require a wholly different machine for printing. The lesson here? Plan accordingly.
"Paper and some plastics can be printed on traditional offset presses as sheets or rolls," explained Romano. "Fabrics and textiles are printed on rotary screen or inkjet presses. Flexible packaging is printed on flexographic presses. Shower curtains and pool liners are printed on gravure presses. Some odd-shaped objects are printed with pad printing, a version of screen-printing. Labels are printed by all processes depending on volume."
2. Some printing methods are more versatile than others.
Still, Romano noted that some processes, like wide-format and flatbed inkjet printers equipped with UV ink, are more versatile than others. "Flatbed UV inkjet printers can print on thick materials like ceramic tiles, ceiling tiles, carpeting, foamcore signage, thick plastics, glass, wood, metal and more," he commented.
Despite their versatility when it comes to substrates, though, inkjet printers are unable to print on non-flat objects, which limits their utility in the promotional products arena. The closest thing to a printing panacea might be screen printing, which doesn't use pressure to apply ink and can print even on surfaces that aren't flat. "Screen printing can print on virtually anything," Romano said. "[Though] the ink may have to change depending on the substrate."
3. It's easier to print on paper.
Paper products are often easier to print on, as the differences between types of paper are generally not as stark as the differences between, say, a water bottle and a T-shirt.
"Printing on paper is very straightforward and the result is usually the same every time," noted Brett Hersh, president of Admints & Zagabor, Bellmawr, N.J. "Printing on other surfaces always presents a challenge because of the coating that is used on each item—whether it is plastic or metal, you have different factories coat the product with different coatings, therefore different inks or pre-treatments are needed."
John Resnick, parter at Boston-based Proforma Printing and Promotion, agreed, but noted that much progress has been made in printing technology. "Especially with paper, you can print basically anything you want, whereas with promo products sometimes you're really limited," he said.
"The industry has come a long way. When I first started doing this, there were so few products we could print full-color process, and now you can find so many more," he continued. "The technology has come a long way, there are so many more options."
4. Color is key.
One of the biggest challenges in printing is achieving consistency in color matching. This is especially true when dealing with major brands, which often have rigid PMS-matching requirements to protect their iconic logos and branding.
For example, if Coca-Cola wants its logo on a neoprene can cooler, PMS 484 (so iconic it is known as "Coke Red") had better look the same printed on neoprene as it does in the company's print ads, in its packaging and in every other promotional product the company employs. "Regardless of the item, the inks and the printer being used need to be profiled so the closest PMS match can be obtained on the surface being printed," explained Hersh.
Many customers don't fully realize the difficulty in PMS matching, which makes it even more important for distributors to A) make their clients aware that color variations can happen, and B) work with suppliers that have the right equipment to ensure as much consistency as possible between print runs. "It's hard to explain that this PMS color, yeah it's your color, but it may not be the same color from an output standpoint when it's on the product," noted Resnick.
5. Digital vs. offset.
Digital printing streamlined much of the printing process, allowing for short turnaround on orders, variable-data and on-demand printing, and other benefits not offered by traditional offset printing. But it may not always be the best option for your clients. For one thing, there's the price issue. "We are using much more digital four-color printing on items, but it does come at a higher cost," Hersh said.
For another, digital printing doesn't necessarily guarantee better color matching than its less-expensive counterpart. "You can get a pretty good output [from digital], but it's still not the same as traditional printing with offset and with plates," Resnick stated. "You could still have a color variation even with digital output even though it's set up as CMYK."
6. Know where to go.
"You can't just go to any commercial printer and say, 'Hey, I need envelopes,'" Resnick said. "There is certain equipment required to print on envelopes, and you have to know who you can go to for that." This is the Gutenberg problem, again—there are so many print processes and so many different products that need to be printed on, making it difficult to find a one-stop-shop, of sorts, for printing needs.
As a workaround, Resnick recommended building strong relationships with suppliers and getting to know each supplier's printing capabilities. "In general, you need to know what trade partners that you use, what their strengths are," he advised.
"They're not all the same. You have to be comfortable with them, it has to be the full package," he added. "Obviously the quality has to be there, and the output, but it has to be there in the customer service aspect, it has to be there in the proofing aspect, the flexibility aspect. You'll know through trial and error and networking within the industry who's good at what."