Digital Printing
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- pillhead
Quick Question
Do most companies who offer business card printing come straight off a large scale digital printer like a HP Indigo 7000. Because I have just had some business card come back to me and they are terrible quality, I had 100 prints done, 20 cards have colour banding issues and white spots where the ink has not taking.
- d_rek0
if you didn't specify the type of printing you wanted done I imagine the company probably defaulted to what is cheapest for them to run. Which your run being as small as it was - 100 cards - I imagine a digital run makes the most sense. It's not cost-effective to burn plates and prep a litho/offset press for such a low run.
That being said it sounds like you had a simple communication breakdown. If this is a local vendor then i would actually be taken aback that they didn't offer you options for printing unless this is kinko's or some other shit shop we're talking about. If it's one of those online vendors then well.. you get what you pay for.
- pillhead0
Well the cards come from printexpress.co.uk and they have litho/offset press. But you are right I did not spec the printing, even so the finished quality is bloody bad.
- d_rek0
Bleh, too early in the morning.
To answer your question...
It depends on the company. A 'digital press' is typically of the larger variety such as the HP Indigo 7000 you mentioned. Unless you specified otherwise the company probably used this machine to print your cards.The banding issue is pretty common in large fields of color for digital printing. It can be alleviated somewhat by carefully selecting paper-stock that is geared towards digital printing but it will never be perfect. As for the white spots where ink is not taking this sounds either to be a stock and/or equipment issue - ink not properly being adhered to surface of paper.
- d_rek0
Some things i've discovered about digital printing...
I've found that coated stocks tend to work better for digital printing - sappi + mccoy have a couple nice digital stocks. Matte paper tends to become more brittle after the ink has been set on the paper and if you're folding it can easily crack and/or tear.Large floods of solid color almost always have issues with banding and/or spotting. I've not found a good way to manage this yet but I think just working with the printer to identify the problems goes a long way.
And always... always request proofs.
Unfortunately working with an online company again you are sort of at their whim. I guess you could haggle them for reprints... you just have to decide if it's worth it.
- All god points, yeah these fuckers are going to reprint some cards, trust me.pillhead
- tesmith0
What d_rek said is correct. I run a digital print shop and try to insist that the client see a finished proof at no charge to avoid this. Stock selection and file preparation are both important. Our client base is designers and agencies, remaining diligent and recognizing our capabilities has led to happy customers. By the way scoring should minimize any cracking when folding.
- pillhead0
Well I had a word yesterday and they agree to print 100 Card for free, so sometimes it does well to complain.