top10 Print Manual

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PRINTING

description

Book design for design 4 print module.

Transcript of top10 Print Manual

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PRINTING

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10 IMPORTANT THINGS TO REMEMBER

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CONTENTS

1. WHAT ARE YOU PRINTING?

2. PRINTING PREPARATION

3. TYPES OF PRINT

4. COLOUR MODES

5. STOCKS

6. IMPOSITION

7. PANTONE MATCHING SYSTEM

8. FINISHING

9. BINDING

10. COSTS

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WHAT ARE YOU PRINTING?

An obvious question perhaps, but this is something that definitely needs thinking about before delving into the print process. It is worth considering:

who what where when and why

in order to make it possible to work out the print process that would be most effective. Knowing these key factors will help define what potential sub-strates, print methods and finishing techniques would be most successful for the job.

For example, if you know you are going to be printing 10,000 flyers to promote a night club, you would inevitably be looking for the cheapest possible solution.

In this case it would be beneficial to minimalise the number of inks used, and print onto some cheap card at a lithography print shop.

On the other hand, your client may be wishing to run a series of promotional items to reassure their audience that yes, they are indeed the absolute leaders of their chosen field. They may wish to present to you a lovingly hand-crafted welcome pack to accompany that luxury car you have just purchased, in order to leave you feeling like you’ve bought more than just a car.

This is where printing gets a little complicated.

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?

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PRINTING PREPARATION

Once you have sussed out the details of what you are wanting to print, it is time to start deciding on the finer details of the print process. Here we investigate what colours and stock are necessary to complete the printing task within the means of your budget. If it is a book you are making, it is also worth taking into consideration the imposition and binding.

Being careful about your print process results ina HAPPY PRINTER.

Remember to discuss with your printer various aspects such as file format, colour modes and stock, to avoid realising you’ve made a huge mistake AFTER sending to print.

a happy printer

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TYPES OF PRINT

SCREEN PRINT

Perhaps the most cost-effective and maybe even the most attractive printing method, this technique relies on passing ink through a silk-screen onto a particular substrate. a versatile method, however unsuitable for printing in very large quantities. Often used to print t-shirts and posters, either mechanically or by hand. A very trendy method for young designer due to its low cost.

LITHOGRAPHY

A process commonly used in commercial printing, involving rotary printers and cylindrical aluminium plates. Rapid printing makes this suitable for high-quantity productions, such as leaflets and magazines.

GRAVURE

Similar to Lithography, but instead making use of direct-to-paper etched copper plates. Suitable for very long print runs and in massive quantity. Think packaging and labels that would need to be in constant production.

FLEXOGRAPHY

Again a similar process to litho/gravure printing, but instead uses rubber plates and a sticky ink that is useful for throw-away products, such as sweet wrappers and plastic bags (which shouldn’t really be thrown away).

PAD PRINTING

A process developed for applying a design onto a 3d surface, using a semi-spherical spongey plate. Used to print logos onto pens, for example.

DIGITAL PRINT

A commonly used process, for both commercial and household print jobs. Prints straight from the document, there is no messing about preparing print plates and mixing spot inks. Uses CMYK (or sometimes CMYKOG in commercial environments) to generate an image. Tends to be rather expensive so is most suited to limited runs of high-quality prints, for example large banners,

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COLOUR MODES

CMYK

The standard choice for desigining for print. CMYK is a subtractive colour mode, which means in order to achieve white, no ink is applied whatsoever.

RGB

The colour mode used when designing for screen. This is an additive colour mode, which essentially means that in order to achieve white, all three colours are applied. Due to the nature of RGB, there are many colours in this mode that cannot be reporduced in CMYK as a printed product.

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MONOTONE

Using solely one colour to create tints, which indicate the light and dark areas, as demonstrated once again by our happy printer on here on the right:

DUNTONE

Fairly obvious after explaining monotone, this print mode makes use of two spot colours to create a variety of tonal values. Our happy printer here on the right has been made up using a light green and light blue, perhaps not presented in the most perfect way but hopefully demonstrates the nature of this print mode.

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SUBSTRATES(Stocks)

prints on a variety of stocks.

A substrate is any material that will recieve the printed image. This is of course not simply limited to ‘paper’ as such, for there are many different varieties of paper, for example matte, glossy, coated and uncoated. That said, there are many other possiblities, for example plastic, fabrics, metal, and even human skin (temporary tattoo transfers, for example). Quite often, alternative and imaginative substrates make for more exciting finished products.

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IMPOSITION

Basic Imposition.

If it is a booklet you are planning to print, it is important to think where the pages are going to sit in relation to each other. If you are printing multiple pages on one sheet of paper, the imposition needs to be considered, which involves re-ordering pages so that - once folded, cut and bound - they will read in the correct order. Many software packages will carry this out for you at quite basic levels, but it is worth taking care over if you are using a special binding method.

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PANTONE MATCHING SYSTEM

This is the internationally recongnised system for matching colours. Colour books are provided to identify the colours used in design work and subsequently represent them as a code. This information can then be passed on to the printer to ensure that the printed design looks identical to the original intended image.

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FINISHING/BINDING

Last but not least, it is important to consider the final touches you may wish to make once the product itself has actually been printed. This could involve anything from embossing/debossing (shown below right) to using special binding techniques, such as japanese stab-binding (shown below left). Other ideas may include foil-blocking, overprinting, or duplexing. The possibilites are endless, and it is well worth investigating a few of these possibilites in order to add an extra edge to your work.

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