Functional Knowledge On A Commercial Printing Company – 6 Key Tips

A printing company has its own prerogatives, and you want an organization large enough not to cast a limitation on yours.  Here are some tips about commercial printing; what things to look for, what things to embrace, and what things to avoid:

1: Technology

A commercial printing company has the technology to serve you well and quickly; but this doesn’t mean they’re immediately the best choice.  Does this organization have a history of meeting deadlines and hitting the estimates it gives its customers?  Furthermore, do they know how to use the technology at their disposal?  You want a print company with up-to-date tech in the printing market, but with understanding of that tech as well, and the ability to get all the function out of it that’s possible.  If they’re fully using their technical resources, it means you’ll likely get a more reasonable deal, as they can afford to abbreviate their pricing because they’re making it up on the back end.

2: Product Quality

What do their finished products look like?  Can this print company do glossy?  And if they can do glossy, can they get full area coverage ink-wise? Some printing companies can do a wide variety of things, but the product comes out grainy because they haven’t used their software correctly.  Look for a print company whose output matches your vision.  Usually they’ll have full CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow blacK) printing capabilities.  Through mixing these four, you can get just about any color imaginable.

3: Web-To-Print

Look for a printing company that offers the option of designing your product digitally and simply e-mailing it to the printers.  If they can streamline this process, you both stand to save time and money.

4: File Checking

A printing company is usually going to print what you’ve requested, so regardless of who you choose, ensure that the files your sending have been checked so that they match what your aims are.  No matter how good the printers, if they’re working with a faulty “blueprint”, then they’ll necessarily yield a faulty result.  So make sure on your end, regardless of the printing company, that everything is as it should be.  This gives you leverage with a printing company as well.  Now, if anything is remiss with your order, you can stand on your rights more thoroughly, and perhaps wrangle a discount or three over the next several jobs.  Which leads to the next point:

5: Final Product Perusal

People are people and computers are computers and both make mistakes.  Capitalize on this if you can.  The best printers won’t make a single mistake–at least not regularly.  The better your printer is, the fewer mistakes you’ll encounter.  However they’ll be there eventually, no matter how perfect the printers may be, and you should keep your eyes open.  Sometimes the errors will be innocuous enough; a comma instead of a period in the small print at the bottom of the page due to a formatting error nobody caught in the software.  Sometimes they’ll omit a letter from a name and change its meaning, so you’ve got to be careful.  Properly examining the final product may also give you leverage for discounts–the likelihood is you’ll be able to find something even with the best printers.  Take their quality guarantee at its word.

6: Avoid Rush Jobs

It doesn’t matter how well you’ve checked files or the final product in a rush job; the instance of mistakes will increase.  Do your best to get your job to the printers so they have time to control for quality.

Choose your printing company with discernment, and good luck!