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guide to print

1. ARTWORKING
2. PROOFING
3. PAPER STOCK
4. PRINTING
5. FINISHING
6. USEFUL INFORMATION

plant list

“Colours, like features, follow the changes of the emotions.”

Pablo Picasso

4. printing

Lithography which took over from letterpress in the late 60’s and 70’s (due to the fact that litho plates wrap around a cylinder and therefore produce work quicker than the fixed bed of a letterpress machine). Lithography plates have no raised or indented areas (planographic) and their surface is completely flat. The lithography process works on the basis that oil and water don’t mix (you can make areas accept water – that means the ink which is oil based is repelled and go to the only pace that it can which is the printed or image area).

There are 3 main types of printing process commonly used – although there are plenty of others which make up a smaller part of the countries printers –examples of these other processes are silk screen (can print on any shape and any material), foil blocking (shinny metal foil), flexo (drinks cans etc), Gravure (large run magazines).

Web Offset Lithography printing is used for the majority of high run newspapers and magazines + large volumes of forms. These machines print from a “web” which is a roll of paper, because the movement through the machine is rotary it is a very fast process.

Sheet fed lithography would be used by the majority of printers and most of the brochures, leaflets, calendars, postcards and posters you see (general print) and produced by this method. There is a large range of press sizes and press types that are used.

Digital Printing: This is the latest technology which works on a similar basis to ink jet printing, it has replaceable cartridges and the printed information comes straight from the computer controlling it – there are no plates. This is excellent for small run brochures and personalised print where every copy can be different from the last. It has over the years created its own market – where 1 or 10 or 100 copies of a brochure was not practical, with digital machines it is now cost effective. There only down side (at the moment) is that they are not suited to runs over 500 copies as the unit cost stays reasonably constant (whereas litho unit cost comes down dramatically).

read about finishing

prepress

AT PRINCIPAL COLOUR WE TAKE CARE OF THE PREPRESS PROCESS. WE WILL TAKE EXTRA CARE TO MAKE SURE YOUR ARTWORK IS SET UP CORRECTLY.