Blog: Printing Disasters—and How to Avoid Them

The reflex blue blues

March 3, 2010 in Cautionary Tales, Disaster Avoidance Tip, Printing | Tags: Offset Printing, Print Production Management, Resources | Design | 5 comments

Another Printing Disasters—and How to Avoid Them story, complete with cautionary tales and disaster avoidance tips.

Blue Cautionary Tales

Last year I had two annual reports at press at the same time. One book had heavy black coverage, but dried just fine. The other had heavy blue coverage and took two extra days to dry!

On another project, the blue ink appeared to be dry, so the printer proceeded to die cut and trim the sheets. The result? The ink offset or rubbed off from one page to another on the finished product. All of the pieces had to be reprinted—at the printer’s expense.

When I worked at Nordstrom, the primary brand color was a very dark blue. Over those two years, I spent a lot of time waiting for ink to dry!

The culprit in every case? Blue. Reflex blue.

Money-saving tip #3: series pricing

February 26, 2010 in Disaster Avoidance Tip, Offset Printing, Printing, Save Money on Printing | Tags: Offset Printing, Print Production Management | 2 comments

Another Printing Disasters—and How to Avoid Them story… third in a series of tips on how to save money on printing.

Tip #3: ask for series pricing

Photo by Darren Hester

Customers who share with their printer their plans to print a project again within a few months’ time usually save money on that entire printing series.

Why? Because every company appreciates repeat business, and printers are no exception. Most businesses know that it costs less to retain an existing customer than to land a new one.

So, for example, if you print 10,000 magazines each quarter in 2010 and award the printing for the entire series to one printer, that printer is likely to give you a great price.

Read the Disaster Avoidance Tips →

Money-saving tip #2: paper mill discounts

February 16, 2010 in Disaster Avoidance Tip, Save Money on Printing | Tags: Print Production Management, Resources | Paper | Leave a comment

Another Printing Disasters—and How to Avoid Them story…second in a series of tips on how to save money on printing.

Tip 2: Ask the paper mill for a discount

To calculate paper costs for a print job, a print estimator either looks up the book price or calls the their paper merchant to get deviated, or discounted, pricing. Book prices are the standard, published prices a paper merchant has set for the papers they carry.

Talk with the paper mill rep

There ’s another way to get deviated paper pricing: If you have a specific paper stock in mind for a large project, take the time to get in touch with that paper company’s mill rep. For example, if you specified Environment, you would contact a Neenah Paper mill rep.

If your print project involves a large paper purchase, the mill rep may offer you a promotional price deviation. Why is this? Like every other business, paper mills really want your business. I don’t advise asking mill reps for paper deals on every little print job, but if you’re printing 10,000 48-page booklets, the mill may be quite willing to sweeten the deal to win your order.

Refer to the mill’s web site, or call a paper merchant (such as Unisource or West Coast Paper) for the regional mill rep’s contact information.

Read the Disaster Avoidance Tips →

Money-saving tip #1: efficient flat sizes

Another Printing Disasters—and How to Avoid Them story…first in a series of tips on how to save money on printing.

Tip 1: Choose an efficient flat size

With paper costs accounting for 25% or more of a print job’s cost, it pays to be smart about paper.

You will always get a better deal on printing when your piece fits on the printing paper with little off-cut, the part of the sheet trimmed away and tossed directly into the recycling bin.

Read more about efficient flat sizes →

DTF print management for small studios

Another Printing Disasters—and How to Avoid Them story...

The Disappearing Task Force Model

The college I attended liked to create ad hoc committees they called Disappearing Task Forces, or DTFs for short. DTFs came together to complete set tasks, then disbanded. In effect, they disappeared.

I always liked that model: Get together, get it done, go away. Come to think of it, that’s how I work as a by-project print production manager. My solo designer clients and those with small studios tell me they value my fast, thorough work and technical advice. They like shipping all that running around and being freed up to focus on their billable design projects.

Read how this looks in practice →

Make the most of your next press check

January 10, 2010 in Disaster Avoidance Tip, Offset Printing, Printing | Tags: Offset Printing, Print Production Management, Printing Industry | 11 comments

““Another Printing Disasters—and How to Avoid Them story...

I’ve conducted more press checks than I can count—small press, large press, digital and conventional, sheet-fed, web, letterpress.

Each has its distinctive peculiarities, but they all have several things in common.

Surprisingly, the secrets to successful press checks are not so much technical as they are cultural.

Over the years I’ve learned that a printing plant is a different world than the one I inhabit the rest of the time, with its own customs and language.

Try these practices at your next press check and see for yourself the difference they will make:

Oldfangled ideas for this newfangled year

January 1, 2010 in Musings | 6 comments

Despite tools like e-mail, social media, and mobile devices, all designed to make communicating a cinch, it seems to me that sometimes there’s less old-fashioned courteous communication than there used to be.

As I reflect on the year that was and the year just beginning, please join me in honing a few old-timey courtesies that I believe enhance any relationship and make human interactions a lot more pleasant.

Acknowledge communication

Nobody likes to be left hanging. Promptly acknowledge the receipt of a query, proposal, price, introduction, or job application. All it takes is a quick reply—whether by e-mail, voice mail, DM or postcard—saying, “I received your message; thank you for your interest in our company,” and a few words on what to expect next.

There’s no harm in being direct, either. Hearing, “Sorry, we don’t have need for what you’re selling,” or, “Our priorities have changed and we won’t be working on that project until 2011,” or “My life is crazy for the next two weeks, but I’ll get back to you after that,” is vastly preferable to hearing nothing at all.

Dear readers,

December 20, 2009 in Musings | 6 comments

Holiday Wishes!

The Winter Solstice is upon us at last. Now the days begin to grow longer again and spring slowly heads our way. From a dark and fallow time, new opportunities and possibilities come.

Check back for new posts in the New Year!

~Nani

Gang to save on printing

Get to know ganging

Are you familiar with ganging? That’s the term for grouping two or more print projects together onto the same printing form. It’s a great way to save money on print jobs.

Ganging is used to good effect for business cards when several of them are printed onto one press form. For the example illustrated above, Sue and Mary needed 500 cards each, but Joe needed 1,000 cards. So Joe’s card appears twice on the form, while Sue and Mary’s cards appear once. In this example, 500 sheets would be printed.

Metallic ink madness

December 5, 2009 in Cautionary Tales, Disaster Avoidance Tip, Offset Printing | Tags: Offset Printing, Print Production Management | 5 comments

If you have Cautionary Tales to tell about metallic inks, you’re not alone. They’re a different animal than most other offset inks and they present unique technical challenges. This article explains some of the characteristics of metallic inks and offers tips for working with them successfully.

Two Cautionary Tales

One designer told me about a brochure project he’d designed that included metallic silver ink. Of course the client was in a big hurry to get the printed brochures, he said. The printer did not think to protect the ink with a coating, did not allow enough drying time, and crammed the brochures tightly into a carton for delivery. Each brochure offset or transferred silver ink from one brochure onto the next. Yikes!

Another designer friend described trying to print black 8 pt. Helvetica Light type on a silver map that included several screen tint values. He commented that it was impossible to tell from the digital proof whether the black type was overprinting or knocking out of the silver, but it looked fine on the proof.

It turned out that the black was set to overprint, so on press it showed up in several values of silverish-black. The designer reported solving the problem by switching the map art from metallic silver to PMS 429 gray.

Read on for metallic ink Disaster Avoidance Tips →

Nani Prints