If you have done any printing on press, than you may have heard the term dot gain bandied about. Or, if you haven’t heard it from your printer, then you may have seen it as an option in In Design, Photoshop or some other design related software. At first glance you might think dot…
When we tell customers that we do a lot of offset printing in 1, 2 or 3 colors, some designers will cringe thinking that it can be nothing but a creativity-limiting process. We of course beg to differ. Printing in 3 colors is often liberating and inspiring for designers and results in some magnificently…
Sometimes at the shop we hear a business card customer say something like, “Hey, can I get my name to stick up? You know, something with dimension to it?” This request is pretty common, and luckily we have an inexpensive option available for customers who want their names and information to stick out…
You’ll find that in a print shop we have a lot of concern for plates. We are constantly talking about them, making them and getting them into the press. Of course these are not commemorative plates that we are talking about here, but rather printing plates. So what is a printing plate and…
Does your design work? Does it look good? And can you prove it? That, in a nutshell, is a printer’s proof. A way to prove that the final output of a given business card, envelope or other project looks right. Lets be clear, proofs don’t come in nutshells,…
Its very common for printers to use an expression like 4-up, 8-up 0r 10-up. Despite it being as hot as it has been in Southeast Pennsylvania the past few days, these are not references to cans of soda. They are actually all expressions to describe the imposition of a project onto a page for…
Thread, staples, wire or glue. When you are laying out a book, a pamphlet or a catalog remember to consider how your work is going to be bound. It is vital to have your binding method in mind when you start to design your project. Each way of binding has its own idiosyncrasies…
Look at a piece of wood and you immediately realize that it has a grain, and the long thin lines of the grain are all headed in one direction. But did you know there is a paper grain in a sheet of paper? Its true, just like wood, every sheet of paper you…
Is this a sheet of paper or is it a page of paper? What’s the difference? One issue that we often encounter at the shop is confusion between a sheet and a page. This makes a big difference when you are setting up a booklet or pamphlet to be printed and bound. A sheet is…
When you are having something printed for yourself or your business, such as your letterhead or business cards, you will no doubt have an idea in your mind of how that should look as a finished product. And as with any creative print project, the options are numerous. One thing you will encounter initially is…
