Have high impact print, not high cost print. With so many options available in today’s print market, knowing what is a worthwhile investment can be difficult. Printing will always have a latest and greatest ready to deplete your budget quickly. You can achieve the high impact visual you want without spending a lot. Good design and some tried and true printing methods can provide all the POP your looking for at very reasonable prices.
Substrates – the right paper can make all the difference.
Choosing the correct substrates, the paper stock you print on, is an opportunity for big impact at marginal costs. Substrate selections seem endless, but a few basics can help you determine which direction to take your print project.
Finish can make a large difference in print quality and effect. Gloss finished substrates are excellent for photos and bright colors. Flat or Matte finished substrates provide a smooth and subdued print. While Satin finished substrates can provide bright colors without the heavily reflective surface.
Textured substrates (such as recycled or linen substrates) look excellent on spot color prints and text based designs like invitations. Don’t shy away from color substrates. Dark color substrate with light color print provides an elegant look that makes your copy stand out.
Thermography – a cost effective alternative.
Letterpress is hot, this traditional printing process provides a beautiful impression and solid bright colors while allowing your carefully selected substrate to shine. Letterpress has become very popular for invitations, wedding materials, envelopes, and other text based spot color designs. However, letterpress is a laborious process that requires expensive medal or polymer dies for each print job. 500 business cards can cost upwards of $500 (at or over $1 per card). 200 Invitations can easily cost over $600 (at or over $3 per invitation).
Thermography is a cost efficient alternative to letterpress that provides the same solid bright colors and clean impression. Thermography produces a raised print, that can be felt by running a finger over the paper, and an eye catching high shine finish. Inexpensive plastic plates are used for Thermography, and setup times are much shorter than Letterpress. 500 business cards can cost as low as $100 (thats only $0.20 per card). 200 Invitation can be as low as $250.
Digital Full Color – cheap, fast, awesome.
Full color printing used to be very expensive, but today’s digital productions printers can produce beautiful full color print at a fraction of the cost.
So what changed? The difference in price represents the difference in cost between wet ink printing and toner based printing. Before, all full color printing was done on a traditional offset press with 4 wet ink stations that each laid down a pass of cyan, magenta, yellow and black. Setup times for those offset presses (perfecting things like registration or ink density) was time consuming. Printers can now produce full color prints on toner based printers (similar to a color laser printer, but much larger, and much faster). A digital press can be setup in mere minutes and run without adjustment for long periods. So you can now add full color photos and graphics to make your print job jump off the page at very affordable prices.
UV Coating – high shine, high impact, low cost.
UV coating is a very glossy coating applied to printed paper and cured to a hardened shiny surface when exposed to ultra violet light. This inexpensive process adds a high shine, overall dramatic look and a protective finish to your print job. Adding uv coating to a digital full color print can make photos or colorful graphics jump off the page.
With some creativity and a little help from a Worrell customer service representative you can give your print jobs an eye catching pop on a budget. Ready to get started with your print masterpiece, give us a call at 1-800-297-9599.
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