Print Buying Direct

Print departments – Graphic Design – part 2 – 11th March 2009

True to type
Typography, for me, is possible one of the most radically changed aspects of our industry over the past 20 years. With the loss of dedicated typographers and typesetters, the standard of typographic design has arguably deteriorated. To understand how and why this might or might not be the case we have to actively compare the way in which typography and typesetting was handled then and is handled now.

Twenty years ago there were many dedicated typesetting companies around, particularly in London with the vast amount of city based work that used external typesetters for a wide variety of documents, ranging from prospectuses to annual report and accounts documents and countless internal and consumer related administrative forms.

These often took months to create, with stage after stage of drafts and redrafts taking hours and hours of typesetting. To fully understand how typesetting evolved we have to look back much further than 20 years to the earlier phototypesetting systems. Machines such as Berthold, Linotype and Compugraphic dominated the typesetting market. The Berthold Diatronics machine was widely regarded as the highest quality typesetter of its day, working off a glass grid for each font family, each character being individually photo-exposed with every key stroke.

Typesetting was originally supplied in galleys, which would then have to be cut and pasted onto artwork boards. No excuse for not setting the copy to fit exactly with the aid of casting off tables.

In addition to the text based systems there were also headline setting machines such as the Berthold Diatype machine. This system was based on a glass disc font system on which individual characters could be photographically exposed by the use of a trigger on the front of the machine. Font alignment was visual and totally manual taking it a very slow process unsuitable for text, the phototypesetting equivalent of hand composition for headlines.

The operators were highly trained compositors, some of whom had actually learnt their craft on hot metal machines such as Linotype and Monotype, where type was actually cast from hot metal in the composter machines. With this solid background in typography and typesetting the standards were generally very high but as with all craft skills, this also proved to be very expensive. Early minicomputer based typesetting software introduced in the 1970s and early 1980s gradually replaced these electro, photomechanical systems with the advent of Postscript mark-up language changing the face of desktop publishing forever.
When desktop publishing, starting with the Apple Macintosh, ironically, the first commercial system to make an impact was Adobe PageMaker, the forerunner of today’s Adobe InDesign, part of the integrated Create Suite. Quark express only appeared much later but for a long time dominated typesetting and page make up in design all over the country. Predictably as these systems improved it had a radical effect on the commercial typesetting companies who eventually fell by the wayside.

With the advent of word processing systems such as Word Perfect and Word, even the city no longer required external typesetting services for the production of their general office documents. With typesetting now increasingly being input by secretarial staff, standards inevitably slipped. They did not have the typographic ability or experience required for the production of quality typesetting. What they did not have was the ability to input copy, which could then be informed by their advertising agency, or increasingly, their design consultancy.

Thankfully, most companies realised very quickly that, to produce quality typesetting they needed to utilise the services of designers to create their documents. This of course put the responsibility for the typesetting firmly on the shoulders of today’s designers. No longer could they rely on the support of typesetting companies but would have to actively set the type themselves. I have heard it said that the Macintosh does not set type as well as its predecessor, the dedicated phototypesetting machine, but I would point out that good typography is not about how efficient the machine is but how good an eye the designers has for the typesetting. Clever use of H & J settings, justification and kerning of fonts are much bit as important now as they were when type cast in hot metal slugs or individual characters.

to be continued…

Print Buying Direct is one of the Uk’s most prominent suppliers of graphic design and print, based in the Crewe and Nantwich area of Cheshire (UK) but supplying all of the UK & Ireland. See our websites for more information on graphic design, brochures, business cards, appointment cards, leaflets, flyers, pamphlets, posters etc

Print Buying Direct is a trading name of The Printing House Ltd. This brand was originally set up to protect the quality name of The Printing House – recognised throught the North of England as a quality printers. Now Print Buying Direct has established itself over the last two years and has become a quality brand in its own right with very competitive prices nationally. Take a look at both websites and learn more about us.

Please feel free to browse our print buying website and use it as a useful tool – we are adding new pages and offers every week. So keep popping back, subscribe to our printing blog, email info@printbuyingdirect.co.uk or call call 0870 950 8444.

For more information please see our websites – especially our Printing Glossary – Printing A to Z – this makes a really useful guide for designers, printers, print buyers, college students etc.

Don’t forget The Printing House also specialise in Printing for Schools, especially School Prospectus. We have a vast range of experience design and print of primary, secondary, 6th form, college and universtity prospectus. Visit our School Prospectus Made Easy website to see examples of our work and more about our products.

Print departments – Graphic Design – part 1 – 11th March 2009

Twenty years ago most designers would work out their initial concepts on paper, with coloured pencils, pastels, magic markers, Letraset, and story boards. Now, of course, with Macintosh being the main design tool numerous variations of concepts can be achieved far more quickly. There are benefits to this but also quite a few drawbacks too.

The benefits are pretty obvious; concepts can be worked up to a highly finished state even at the way early stages of design. No need for the previously essential magic maker scamps or pencil drawn scribbles, although even now, some of more experienced designers around still like to go through this process.
The biggest problem that I see associated with developing early concepts on the Macintosh screen is that it is so easy to produce numerous variations of a theme, readily being able to change fonts, typographic style, format, or colour schemes that it can sometimes make it harder to develop a single focused concept.
As a production consultant, I am frequently asked to produce cost estimates at early stages of design development on a very wide ranging specification which can result in a great deal of time and effort being wasted, not just by the designers but by the estimators at every stage of the production process. Of course that is what estimators are supposed to do but overloading them unduly will just result in delays getting realistic costs to clients on time, which we all know can be very frustrating at times.
Often, the main issue is budget; it is all very well designing for a whole range of print and binding techniques but frequently, what starts out as an all singing, all dancing concept will get diluted by financial, constraints to a much simpler solution.

There is nothing wrong with this of course, sometimes you have to stretch your thinking outside of the usual constraints but for any designer who is trying to be commercially successful this can result in a lot of un-billable time.

To get back to my original observation, when concepts had to be physically drawn by hand with each stage being much more laborious and time consuming, it is amazing how focused you can become. Introducing radical changes of format and style would in effect mean a complete restart and could jeopardise the due deadline for presenting to the end client.

The positive side of course is that with the speed and power of Macintosh OSX, powerful design software and the quality available of even relatively low cost in-house digital printers, design concepts can be so highly finished that the client can see exactly what the end result will look like, making it far easier to get approval and to progress the job.

One serious problem that this ease of design development has created is that end clients have become so used to immediacy that they wrongly assume that the same is true for production times of commercial print runs. It is one thing to work up a design concept and produce a handful of presentation visuals; it is something completely different to translate that into a production run, particularly when the job involves multiple print processes or has complex binding with a lot of hand work.
We are often guilty of being afraid to say no t impossible deadlines because we fear that if we do not agree to those time constraints there are many others out there who will. If we are to achieve high standards must follow through to the quality of the end product, something that can be adversely affected by unrealistic production schedules.

Perhaps colleges should actively encourage designers not to throw away those sketch pads but to use them far more readily to develop the thinking process at the early conceptual stages of design. I am not generating on this as I am sure there are many designers who still prefer to work this way and many colleges who actively encourage this, but it would be far too easy to fall into the trap of using the computer screen and the potential of available design software as a substitute for sound creative thinking.

Print Buying Direct is one of the Uk’s most prominent suppliers of graphic design and print, based in the Crewe and Nantwich area of Cheshire (UK) but supplying all of the UK & Ireland. See our websites for more information on graphic design, brochures, business cards, appointment cards, leaflets, flyers, pamphlets, posters, Postcards etc

Print Buying Direct is a trading name of The Printing House Ltd. This brand was originally set up to protect the quality name of The Printing House – recognised throught the North of England as a quality printers. Now Print Buying Direct has established itself over the last two years and has become a quality brand in its own right with very competitive prices nationally. Take a look at both websites and learn more about us.

Please feel free to browse our print buying website and use it as a useful tool – we are adding new pages and offers every week. So keep popping back, subscribe to our printing blog, email info@printbuyingdirect.co.uk or call call 0870 950 8444.

For more information please see our websites – especially our Printing Glossary – Printing A to Z – this makes a really useful guide for designers, printers, print buyers, college students etc.

Don’t forget The Printing House also specialise in Printing for Schools, especially School Prospectus. We have a vast range of experience design and print of primary, secondary, 6th form, college and universtity prospectus. Visit our School Prospectus Design website to see examples of our work and more about our products.

Design for Digital Print – 12th February 2009

The new generation of designers is learning its craft in a world where everything happens in real time, driving new relationships with technology – and the printing industry. Examples can be found in every growth area of the print industry. For example, print-on-demand services require designers and printers to share a commitment to frequent, rapid turnarounds. Personalised, variable information printing can improve response rates when creative teams closely coordinate targeting and production with database managers and print providers. And streamlined work processes can save incredible amounts of time and still deliver high-quality output – provided the designer and printer have the knowhow to integrate their digital systems. A new book developed by students in the Communications Design Department of the renowned Parsons School of Design in New York, in collaboration with Xerox Corporation, captures the fresh eye this new generation of designers casts on their new, 21st-century relationships. The Art and Science of Digital Printing: The Parson’s Guide to Getting it Right, is a 70-page primer on digital color printing.
Excerpts and summaries follow:

Proof early and often.
Proofing on digital presses has two significant differences from proofing for offset. First, the digital proof is not a simulation, as it is in the offset process. Rather, digital proofs are printed on the actual production device, permitting the designer to see exactly how the piece will turn out. Second, digital proofs cost far less than high quality on-press proofs. Consequently, the digital workflow process is based upon designers submitting files, reviewing press proofs, making any adjustments they desire and repeating the process until they are satisfied. Such aggressive proofing gives the designer unprecedented control, and is critical to digital printing success.

Avoid image compression.
Image compression enables files to be downloaded more quickly and easily on the Internet but can cause the loss of valuable image information that cannot be restored. Parsons recommends working with uncompressed TIFF or EPS files whenever possible, avoiding use of compressed file types, such as JPEG.
When files are received as JPEGs, Parsons recommends opening them in an image editing application, such as Adobe Photoshop CS, and saving them as uncompressed TIFF or EPS files.

Revisiting type sizes.
Just as offset type reproduction differs from letterpress, digital type reproduction differs from offset. And the only way to know the difference is to see it. Parsons students demonstrated this by developing a concept for a digital type specimen book that shows a range of typefaces in different sizes and colours, on white paper and as knockout black. Generally, smaller type is more challenging on digital presses than on offset, but knockout type on black can work well on digital presses. Proof reading early and often helps ensure that typeface selections are readable and effective.

Be resolute on resolution.
Parsons recommends different resolution settings for text and images. Scans should be produced at 600 to 1,200 dots per inch (dpi) at reproduction size for text and line art and at 300 dpi for continuous tone images. Increasing the resolution has minimal impact on continuous tone images. To determine resolution of existing images when scaled to planned reproduction size, Adobe Photoshop has an image size tool in its pull-down menu that can automatically calculate resolution at various sizes.

Optimizing large areas of flat tints.
While digital color presses are excellent at reproducing color, they perform less well in reproducing large areas of some colors evenly – especially mid-tone tints and long blends. Often they come out fine, but sometimes they show unevenness. Reproduction can be improved by choosing a lighter or darker percentage or using an imaging software, such as Adobe Photoshop, to add noise, or texture, or to create a tight pattern. Thorough proofing helps ensure that the approach is working.

Using RGB images.
Because RGB images have a larger color gamut than the CMYK images traditionally used in printing, maintaining an RGB color space for images ensures optimal color reproduction and greater flexibility. The computer, or RIP, that controls the press is programmed to understand the optimal colour translation for the digital press gamut – work with it and it will work for you.

Make contact with your printer.
Your printer operates its digital press every day and should be able to help you optimize your design to best meet the press’s spec – and your expectations. Before committing to a job with a new printer, speak with the printer to understand the firm’s experience and skill set. Once a job is under way, seek your printer’s advice on improving your proofs. Digital printing technology is new and still evolving rapidly. Applying your printer’s experience to your job can be the difference between good enough and excellent.

For more information please see our websites

The Printing House

Print Buying Direct (Print Buying Direct is a brand of The Printing House Ltd, Crewe, Cheshire, UK)

For all the rationalisation, mergers and acquisitions that have taken place, the demand for print has largely remained in line with GDP (Gross Domestic Product). As GDP has risen, so has the volume of print but how the printing pie has been cut up and the number of mouths getting what could be considered a fair share has perhaps dropped.

The next couple of years many economists are suggesting we may see some of the toughest trading conditions seen since the late 1970s, but economists are invariably wrong and it is fair bet that they will be wrong for attributing tough trading conditions in the printing industry on the economy. Trading conditions are certain to become turbulent; how can there be stability when several manufacturers introduce presses, including long perfectors, into the marketplace capable of changing all their plates in a little over a couple of minutes, carrying out make-readies in 10 minutes or less? And to boot, web-fed digital presses producing 1800 A4s per minute.

There is another element that is certain to bring instability to our industry that has little to do with economic forces. Customer expectations are changing in a rather profound way. One of the most significant effects of the digital age is the influence on customer expectations. No, not the speed at which they expect to get the job, though that is given, it is their quality expectations; printing from the Internet has meant a huge change in perceptions of quality, strength of design and overall appearance.

Much of today’s print is related to supplying information; brochures, reports, products leaflets, general information and this is delivered usually via an office printer using 11 and 12 point sans serif type printed on white 90gsm laser type paper. The result is more than adequate, with colour where appropriate printed at 600 and 1200dpi. What we are seeing is a fundamental change in our expectations of what is appropriate. Just as wearing a tie in important meetings can seem outmoded and stuffy- print is facing a similar change, with what is ‘fit for purpose’ the new driving force. Certainly collar and tie printing will always have its place, but the situation will arise more often where a superbly produced 16 page brochure in six colours with multiple matt and spot UV overprints will look aggressive and inappropriate. You have been warned.

For more information on Press Technology or printing in general please don’t hesitate to contact us at The Printing House (Print Buying Direct)

Although many designers still work manually, most illustrations, photographs and graphics are created and edited using digital tools. Software such as Photoshop or Illustrator, digital capture with a scanner or digital camera, all allow us to create and manipulate graphics digitally. However, there are many ways of publishing graphics so digital images need to be prepared in different ways. The requirements for resolution and overall image quality can differ quite substantially, and images are processed again when plates are made, or when screening is applied to data for output on a digital press. Depending on the image content, operators have to consider what dot shape to use for the screen dots, and whether to use stochastic screening in order to avoid moiré.

Density

For reproduction in a digital workflow, photographic originals, colour negatives and transparencies, have to be digitised using a high end scanner, either drum or flatbed. Desktop flatbed scanners are really only suitable for scanning reflective photos, where the results are not likely to suffer the rigours of subsequent for print. When screening transparencies, it’s important to use a scanner with sufficient resolution to achieve fine detailed and sharp images. Transparencies have a higher density than reflective images.

Digital images

Scanners used to be important for digital image processing, but they are now largely redundant because of the increase use of digital cameras. High-end digital cameras now have enough resolution and image quality to capture images that can be used in a professional prepress workflow. With resolutions of 10MP (mega pixels) or more in the image sensor, even midrange digital cameras produce good enough images for many publishing scenarios. High-end professional’s digital cameras offer even higher image quality, and even surpass what can be achieved when scanning transparencies on a drum scanner. When processing digital photos the challenge is to maintain both shadow details and highlights when processing the raw data from the camera. This ensures that the colour and grey balance are correct and although the camera’s built in software does a decent job for most situations; advanced image processing is often needed to achieve high and consistent image quality. This is especially true for print output. One of the most popular image editing software packages is, of course, Adobe Photoshop, but it takes a long time to learn and master the more advanced functions.

Five major considerations

If every single image has to be analysed and processed manually there are five main areas to consider.

1. decide if the original image has enough resolution for the publishing process to be used, so that all details will appear sharp and correctly rendered.
2. it’s important that the image is rendered with smooth tone transitions, both in the shadow details, in the midtones, and in the highlights.
3. There should be no tendency to banding or loss of fine details.
4. Good overall contrast is key to ensuring that the image has depth, and the colours should be accurate and as bright as possible, rendered with the correct hue.
5. Last but not least; the grey balance needs to be checked. If an image has a colour cast in what should be neutral grey areas (or light and near white areas), the whole image will look strange.

RGB to CMYK

Digital cameras and scanners capture images in RGB, so before converting images into the CMYK colour space for printing, they need to be optimised. On a calibrated monitor a balance in the RGB values, for example a setting of 127 red, 127 green and 127 blue, should produce a mid-grey neutral tone on the monitor, and so in the image.

Compression

Image processing involves many variables. One of the trickiest for many operators is knowing when and how to apply compression: too much compromises image quality, too little means unnecessarily fat files that can slow down production. A popular technology for reducing image file size is JPEG, but although it’s popular, JPEG is actually a lossy compression technology, so JPEG compressed images will always lose some data, and therefore, quality. Advanced digital photographers prefer to use TIFF on their original photos, because it also can compress images but it is not as lossy as JPEG.

For more information on image processing or printing in general please don’t hesitate to contact us at The Printing House (Print Buying Direct)

Designing For Print

Information supplied courtesy of Print Buying Direct at The Printing House Ltd

We get asked all the time about how to design for print. This blog focuses digital print as we find many designers haven’t ever been advised of the advantages or limitations of digital print. Obviously many things are still relevant to litho printing (this still remains our core business) so whatever kind of print you design for hopefully you can draw something useful from the information below.

TEXT CONSIDERATIONS
GENERAL

• Include all fonts in both page layout and vector graphics files.
• Supported font types include PostScript Type 1, 3, OpenType, TrueType, Multiple Master
• When possible, select fonts from the Font menu and use caution when working with stylized fonts from the Style menu.
• Preserve text as a font; do not rasterize text in the application.

TYPE COLOR

• Create solid black text with 100% K only for the most dense black.
• As with any digital or offset printing system, saturated text presents the best appearance. When a tint is used, the halftone screen may be visible on the edge and cause a jagged appearance. Text containing at least one ink of 100% C or M or K presents the best appearance with solid, rich colors
• RGB solid text, such as 100% red, may reproduce as a tint. Define solid color text in CMYK if possible.

TYPE SIZE

• For positive solid text use a minimum of 4 point and 6 point for reverse.
• For positive tinted text use a minimum of 6 point and 8 point for reverse.
• With smaller text, sans serif fonts are recommended.

GRAPHICS CONSIDERATIONS
COLOR IN GRAPHICS

• Colors for fine rules or small graphics, such as bullets and icons, print best when at least one color separation (other than yellow) is set to a solid or near solid color (e.g., 90-100%).

SPOT COLORS (PANTONE)

• Select PANTONE colors by choosing them from the PANTONE color library.
• Do not change the name of PANTONE colors (e.g., PANTONE 106C to Sunshine Yellow or to PANTONE 106C copy).
• When PANTONE colors are desired, it’s always safest to ask us how the colours you want are best printed.
• Be sure to specify the color as a [Spot] color. This will allow the digital press to provide the best spot color accuracy within the limitations of the printer. (THIS IS THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF DESIGNING FOR OFFSET/LITHO PRINTING – PLEASE ASK IF UNSURE)

GREYS

• Grey text, graphics, and gradients will be best produced if they are created with K only in a CMYK working space.
• Grey balance is dependant upon selections made at the printer. If you are creating grey colors with RGB or CMYK combinations, consult us for the appropriate values needed to achieve good neutrals.

BLACK

• When printing black on uncoated substrates, add a small amount of C, M or Y to improve uniformity and minimize paper texture.

TINT UNIFORMITY
Digital printing systems, in general, may show slight variations in color within large areas of mid-density tints. Color variation may be emphasized with coated stock due to smoothness of the paper.

• Design with smaller areas when using tints and/or design with colors that are less than 40% or greater than 70% in value.
• Sensitivity to color variations may be reduced by introducing a texture or by adding text or graphic objects.

GRAPHIC EDGES

• Edges of tinted areas may also have a jagged appearance, dependent on line frequency and the angle of the halftone screen with respect to the angle of the edge. When selecting the color for fine rules or elements, better results will be achieved by choosing saturated colors or setting at least one separation (other than yellow) to 100%.

GRADIENTS
The best produced gradients will be produced when using vector gradient tools in programs such as Illustrator that take advantage of PostScript Language Level 3 and PDF 1.3 Smooth shading operations.

Following are suggestions for achieving the smoothest gradients:

• To ensure enough gray levels, gradients length should be greater than 2cm.
• Use a color change of 100% for at least one colour separation for gradients less than 2 cm long and a change of 50% for gradients less than 4 cm long.
• Adding Noise or a Gaussian blur can improve gradients in Photoshop.
• Saturated colors generally produce the smoothest blends.
• Avoid creating gradients that blend from a very dark color (e.g., navy blue) to white. They have a tendency to have more banding.
• For gradients blending to white, set the same color to 0%. Do not use white. Example: first color PANTONE 032C: 100%, second color PANTONE 032C: 0%.

I hope you’ve found this useful. More useful hints to follow in the next few days.