Printed materials are essential to many small businesses, but their costs can quickly add up. The success and proliferation of online offset-printing companies over the past 10 years has enabled all of us to get high-quality printed materials for dramatically lower prices. $50 now seems like a reasonable for 1,000 two-sided full-color business cards, but if you had quoted this job through your local print shop 5 years ago, it would be closer to $500.
At the beginning of this decade, you could convey a sense of professionalism and quality with cheap offset printing, because so many other small businesses were still using Kinko’s or even their own inkjet printers. Now that cheap offset printing is ubiquitous, we’re looking for new ways to stand out. If you can afford it, jobs printed with spot colors on custom stock will always be perceived as more premium than cheap 4C. If you have to run 4C for budget or practical purposes, many printers are now offering Spot UV, silver ink, and foil stamping for very reasonable prices.
Spot UV on a Black 13 postcard
Aside from the fancy options, I think it’s important to be sure you’re still getting a high quality product, and to try to sidestep some of the pitfalls of cheap 4-color printing.
We got some new postcards for Black 13 Tattoo Parlor back recently from OvernightPrints. I’ve used OvernightPrints before on numerous occasions where budget is an issue and have been more or less satisfied. An internet search will find hundreds of complaints about OvernightPrints, which is probably a testament to their popularity. Caveat emptor applies as always: Any gang-run printer is going to have color shift issues between jobs, and even moreso on ‘tricky’ CMYK colors like oranges and dark yellows. However, I think most people’s issues with any bargain-basement printer can be avoided with some experience (and sometimes, lowered expectations).
That being said, I’m a little less than satisfied with this recent job. The noticeable amount of shift in tonality was really unexpected for me, because I managed my end of the color workflow correctly. The job was also run at a very low screen compared to what I’m used to. While these shortcomings may not be noticeable to the client, it’s always frustrating to expect a nice product and get something else. I’m casting around for some other bargain printers right now, and hopefully will have the results of some of their work within a month or two.
What am I (or any other graphic designer) really looking for? To me, the ideal bargain online printer will:
Have a lucid implementation of a standard color profile: Saying “We use GRACoL” is not enough. If your file uploader strips embedded profiles and recalibrates colors even when the embedded ICC profile matches what you’re using, let us know. The average printing customer may not care about this, but if you are not managing color reliably, graphic designers are not going to recommend you to clients. [I believe OvernightPrints was better with this in the past before they switched to the GRACoL standard]
Rip vector elements at high resolution: OvernightPrints does not seem to do this. I believe their work flow essentially converts everything to 300dpi TIFF files. This has a serious impact on the legibility of small type. This is another thing that I believe has changed with them lately.
Run a tight screen: And here is the straw that broke the designer’s back. While the client was happy with the job we got back from OvernightPrints, I took a close look at the photo montage because it looked, well, fuzzy. I was surprised to see a really slack line screen. We’re living in the year 2010, and I expect a little more than 133-150lpi on my offset jobs.
It's about 142 lpi. Yes, I counted. Note the blurry edges which would be sharp if ripped directly from a vector file instead of being downsampled by printer to a 300dpi bitmap.
Some (most?) jobs absolutely require full color, and often the budget or size of the job will not allow for quality control measures like press checks and color match proofs. When ultra-tight color tolerance is a must, no one should even think about a bargain-basement online printer. Due to the realities of budget, however, designers will frequently be dealing with these companies. It is valuable to know which company is going to give you the best possible output instead of degrading your design due to dumbed-down production processes.
While OvernightPrints put in a disappointing 140lpi (they are one of the few online printers that don’t mention line screens on their website), the standard for online printers seems to be 200lpi. I found one printer claiming to run 500lpi which I’m guessing is a typo. I’ve put together a short list of bargain offset printing companies and am dying to do a print-job shootout of sorts; there doesn’t seem to be one on the web. Check back soon for that.