Printing News & Commentary ↓

Three common printing methods are sheetfed offset, web offset and digital printing. Today’s post is going to discuss sheetfed offset printing.

It depends on the size of the piece being printed, but a general guideline to follow is:

Digital Printing – best for short run projects.
Sheetfed Printing – best for medium run projects.
Web Printing – best for large run projects.

With sheetfed printing, sheets of paper are fed into the printing press to be printed on. Some sheetfed presses contain what’s called a “perfector cylinder” and this enables the pressman to flip the sheet of paper so both sides can be printed on in one pass.

There are different sheetfed press sizes to handle various sizes of paper. And while the quality of sheetfed offset printing was once superior, web printing (and to some extent, digital printing) are right up there in quality now.

If you have any questions, please email Matt Cote.

 

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Below is an excellent magazine advertisement we recently came across that we want to share with you. It’s a magazine ad shedding positive light on magazines, and it brings up some excellent points. Magazine publishing isn’t dead — the game is just changing.

 

Some of the direct mail campaigns we manage and produce for clients involves full color digital printing — so let’s talk today about what exactly this print technology is.

As you can see above, a digital printing press is like a glorified copier machine. In technical terms, the process involves the reproduction of a digital image(s) on a physical surface like paper.

Unlike traditional printing — like offset printing — digital printing doesn’t require plates. As a result, the set-up costs are less making it more economical for short-run projects. More importantly, this enables very detailed personalization. i.e. every piece can be different…or the recipient’s name spelled out in the artwork like written in sand, etc.

From an environmental perspective, full color digital printing wastes less chemicals and paper because the set-up doesn’t involve adjusting the color, registration and positioning. Less paper is also wasted because digital printing is perfect for on demand projects — meaning, you only print what you need.

The two main downsides to digital printing, however, are quality and price. The quality is not yet up to par with traditional printing…but this is quickly changing. And second, the price on large-run projects is usually cost-prohibitive…but this too is improving.

If you have any questions, please let us know!