Evolution Print Talk

Today we had a talk from Evolution Print in Sheffield, who are a high end corporate printing company. 

The guy that came in spoke about some aspects of lithography that differ from digital print.

• Printing over 500 copies of something is generally cheaper than printing something digitally.
• The main cost of lithography is producing the printing plates, which can be about £100 for a full set.
• When producing leaflets, working in pages of 8's and 16's is considerably cheaper.
• Extra stock is needed to test and calibrate printing plates, which costs extra money.
• You should consider how your chosen finish and stock is going to effect the print quality when designing your stuff so you don't get disappointed in the results.
• Lithography allows you to use spot colours and metallic colours.

He also talked to us about the mistakes that designers tend to make when sending their stuff to the printers, and gave us a few pointers on important things to do when you send things to the printers.

• Use a 3mm bleed all the time
• If you're using a spot colour, the file should be in CMYK format.
• Send the file in it's original format and in a PDF format so it can be changed if necessary.
• Send the files as single pages not spreads so the printers can set up the file to their preferences.
• If you're using foiling you should set up the foiling area as a spot colour.
• Keep images at the size they're used at in the file to reduce file size.