Printed Work - A Simple Guide
Producing printed work that does its job within time and budget is straightforward - as long as you understand the process. If you don't, you'll spend more time and money than you need to do, and the final result might not do what you need it to.
The starting point
Like all marketing activity, it starts with an objective - who do you want to see your printed work, and what do you want them to do afterwards? And how much money are you prepared to spend on producing it?
These have to be defined before any work starts, or else the whole project is based on guesswork.
The key stages
It is essential to understand these and keep them in mind. The cost of successive stages increases in leaps and bounds - so you must avoid going back and repeating stages.
To do this, you need to be absolutely happy with the job before proceeding to the next stage. This is the most important thing to understand about printed work.
- brief
- concept and layout
- copy and images
- artwork
- proof
- final print run
Costs of changes increase with each stage - if you go back and rethink, you'll have to throw away work already done. When you're approving copy, it's not the time to have second thoughts about the concept. And artwork is not the time to rethink the copy. The only changes you should make at proof stage are directions to the printer - there should be no changes at all to copy or images.
Artwork - low resolution and high resolution
Artwork is the stage when all elements of the job are laid out ready for reprographics. This is always done digitally nowadays (it used to be laid out on a large board, with the different design elements pasted onto the board). Initial outputs are at a low resolution, as this is easier to handle and allows you to see what the job will look like.
Once you're happy with it, a high resolution version of the file will be produced. This is a complicated process, and takes time - so don't approve the artwork until you're confident you've got what you want.
Why is high resolution needed? - because the print process needs all the extra information in the higher resolution file to achieve a good result.
Reprographics
This is the stage when the artwork is transformed into the elements necessary to print your job. It's necessary because all printing involves some kind of visual trickery - a small number of basic colours are combined to make the eye see all the colours of the spectrum. So the print file has to be split into these basic colours - that's why this stage is sometimes called colour separation. Depending on the process, films and plates may need to be produced.
A proof produced at this stage is called a pre-press proof. It is usually possible to get colour-correct proofs these days - if not, it may be necessary to proof on press at the start of the actual print run.
Cutting and folding
Most jobs are printed on oversize sheets or webs, and the final job has to be cut out. In the case of non-standard shapes and sizes, this may require making a die or forme to do the cutting. Some jobs require drying time before cutting can be carried out.
If folding is necessary - for example for a folded 1/3A4 leaflet - then this is done as the last stage.