After introductions he jumped straight into their speciality, litho printing. We learnt about the whole process of litho and how it works, it is a CTP which is a computer to plate system where the image is burnt onto an aluminium plate, for full detail on process look at litho vs digital post.
At evolution print they print on a range of stock; from SRA2-B1, 70gsm-450gsm, gloss, silk or uncoated. He explained how big time professional companies like to use the gloss as it looks more professional where as designers prefer to use uncoated because of the organic feel you get from the texture and the dots spreading ever so slightly as it's printed onto the uncoated absorbent surface.
He then compared litho and digital press so that we would understand the benefits of using one or the other for different circumstances. Litho is expensive but a lot better quality and uses vegetable based inks making it a more environmentally friendly process. Digital has a limited sheet size, uses a more unfriendly powder base ink, but you only pay per sheet so shorter runs are more cost effective than producing litho prints for say a run of only 100. Litho is £60 for 'make ready' then another £100 for the plate.
Helpful tips and tricks
Design in 8's, 16's and 32's. It saves money because less sections are needed, for example if you were printing 28 pages you would need a 4, an 8 and a 16 sheet plate which all costs more money.
Are you going to see the benefit of using expensive stock throughout the publication when it's going to be covered in vast amounts of ink? Better off using expensive stock for cover and using good quality standard stock for the inside content.
Before arriving he visited the team that receives the files from designers and prepares them for print for any tips and tricks to make their lives easier; they compiled a list of 'things designers get wrong'
- No bleed on documents, 3mm bleed and crop marks needed.
- Individual business cards needs to on individual sheets as opposed to eight on a single sheet.
- Brochures, booklets sent as spreads, they need to be sent as individual sheets so that they can organise them in the correct order for the printer.
- Front cover art needs to be sent separately, as PDF and original document format.
- Don't use spot colours with transparencies, instead send as overprint
- Keep image size to 300 dpi and the image size the actual size it'll be printed off as.
Samples
I thoroughly enjoyed todays session, before it I never actually understood the whole litho process, it's good to see examples so that I could get my head around it all. I love visits from professionals because you can feel the passion involved and this passion is transferred through their talks and descriptions, it's so much better than researching the processes on the internet, it's boring and often confusing.