ballpark.

4. Make sure they are responsive to you from a customer service standpoint. Dealing with a good printer representative that will advise you along the way is extremely important, even for professionals.

Notice I talked nothing of selecting based on price; we'll talk about that next. Here is the fun part, you cannot get a quote from a vendor until you know what you are printing (i.e. dimensions, number of colors, quantities and any special finishes) and your design firm will not want to start design until they know your printer's capabilitie

In our industry, one of our jobs as design experts is to maneuver pitfalls that arise for our clients both experienced and inexperienced. There are four primary areas where we provide this kind of guidance to our clientele; strategy, conceptualization, layout and production. The funny thing is the most detail-oriented area, production, seems to be the one arena where many clients retain an overwhelming do-it-yourself mentality. In the next series of newsletters, I would like to explain from a fairly high level view and from professional experience what goes into production of a project; vendor selection, production costs, file prep, press checks and the outcome.

Vendor Selection Thinking that all printers can produce your file properly is like saying all cars are the same. As you know, some cars ride smoothly, some bumpy, some are sleek and others just plain get you from point A to point B (most of the time) but it all falls back to the old clich? "you get what you pay for." Each printer is setup differently with different equipment. Many printers can handle all trim and finishing effects, like foil, in-house while others have to outsource your job to be completed. Some printers can handle a 7-color job on one press while others only carry digital solutions. Have I confused you yet? No? Good. Then here are four basic things to think about when selecting a vendor

1. Let your design firm handle it. They have a list of vendors that they work with routinely and trust implicitly to get the job done right. This expertise comes from being burned a few times and committing to a "not-the-cheapest" solution.

2. Do your homework. Get samples of previous work from a couple of different printers so that you can compare quality and know what to anticipate from them.

3. Get a list of their capabilities. If your job requires die cuts will they be handling that in-house? If you are ordering stickers, is that in their capabilities or will they be playing middleman? What kind of presses are they printing on, offset, digital, flexo, gravure? Ok. the last two were not exactly fair. Flexo is mainly for odd substrates (what you are printing on) and if you are not printing enormously large quantities gravure isn't even in your ballpark.

4. Make sure they are responsive to you from a customer service standpoint. Dealing with a good printer representative that will advise you along the way is extremely important, even for professionals.

Notice I talked nothing of selecting based on price; we'll talk about that next. Here is the fun part, you cannot get a quote from a vendor until you know what you are printing (i.e. dimensions, number of colors, quantities and any special finishes) and your design firm will not want to start design until they know your printer's capabilities

production of a project; vendor selection, production costs, file prep, press checks and the outcome.

Vendor Selection Thinking that all printers can produce your file properly is like saying all cars are the same. As you know, some cars ride smoothly, some bumpy, some are sleek and others just plain get you from point A to point B (most of the time) but it all falls back to the old clich? "you get what you pay for." Each printer is setup differently with different equipment. Many printers can handle all trim and finishing effects, like foil, in-house while others have to outsource your job to be completed. Some printers can handle a 7-color job on one press while others only carry digital solutions. Have I confused you yet? No? Good. Then here are four basic things to think about when selecting a vendor

1. Let your design firm handle it. They have a list of vendors that they work with routinely and trust implicitly to get the job done right. This expertise comes from being burned a few times and committing to a "not-the-cheapest" solution.

2. Do your homework. Get samples of previous work from a couple of different printers so that you can compare quality and know what to anticipate from them.

3. Get a list of their capabilities. If your job requires die cuts will they be handling that in-house? If you are ordering stickers, is that in their capabilities or will they be playing middleman? What kind of presses are they printing on, offset, digital, flexo, gravure? Ok. the last two were not exactly fair. Flexo is mainly for odd substrates (what you are printing on) and if you are not printing enormously large quantities gravure isn't even in your ballpark.

4. Make sure they are responsive to you from a customer service standpoint. Dealing with a good printer representative that will advise you along the way is extremely important, even for professionals.

Notice I talked nothing of selecting based on price; we'll talk about that next. Here is the fun part, you cannot get a quote from a vendor until you know what you are printing (i.e. dimensions, number of colors, quantities and any special finishes) and your design firm will not want to start design until they know your printer's capabilitie

ouse while others have to outsource your job to be completed. Some printers can handle a 7-color job on one press while others only carry digital solutions. Have I confused you yet? No? Good. Then here are four basic things to think about when selecting a vendor

1. Let your design firm handle it. They have a list of vendors that they work with routinely and trust implicitly to get the job done right. This expertise comes from being burned a few times and committing to a "not-the-cheapest" solution.

2. Do your homework. Get samples of previous work from a couple of different printers so that you can compare quality and know what to anticipate from them.

3. Get a list of their capabilities. If your job requires die cuts will they be handling that in-house? If you are ordering stickers, is that in their capabilities or will they be playing middleman? What kind of presses are they printing on, offset, digital, flexo, gravure? Ok. the last two were not exactly fair. Flexo is mainly for odd substrates (what you are printing on) and if you are not printing enormously large quantities gravure isn't even in your ballpark.

4. Make sure they are responsive to you from a customer service standpoint. Dealing with a good printer representative that will advise you along the way is extremely important, even for professionals.

Notice I talked nothing of selecting based on price; we'll talk about that next. Here is the fun part, you cannot get a quote from a vendor until you know what you are printing (i.e. dimensions, number of colors, quantities and any special finishes) and your design firm will not want to start design until they know your printer's capabilitie

m a couple of different printers so that you can compare quality and know what to anticipate from them.

3. Get a list of their capabilities. If your job requires die cuts will they be handling that in-house? If you are ordering stickers, is that in their capabilities or will they be playing middleman? What kind of presses are they printing on, offset, digital, flexo, gravure? Ok. the last two were not exactly fair. Flexo is mainly for odd substrates (what you are printing on) and if you are not printing enormously large quantities gravure isn't even in your ballpark.

4. Make sure they are responsive to you from a customer service standpoint. Dealing with a good printer representative that will advise you along the way is extremely important, even for professionals.

Notice I talked nothing of selecting based on price; we'll talk about that next. Here is the fun part, you cannot get a quote from a vendor until you know what you are printing (i.e. dimensions, number of colors, quantities and any special finishes) and your design firm will not want to start design until they know your printer's capabilitie

ballpark.

4. Make sure they are responsive to you from a customer service standpoint. Dealing with a good printer representative that will advise you along the way is extremely important, even for professionals.

Notice I talked nothing of selecting based on price; we'll talk about that next. Here is the fun part, you cannot get a quote from a vendor until you know what you are printing (i.e. dimensions, number of colors, quantities and any special finishes) and your design firm will not want to start design until they know your printer's capabilities (i.e. are they digital or can we produce spot colors, can they handle specialty paper, die cut) ... a fun conundrum right?

Remember, not all printers are created equal. There are Porsches, Toyotas and Pintos, the trick is discerning between them and which one you are willing to ride in. Don't forget to catch the next article in this series, D.I.Y. Print Production: Production Costs.