Three Planning Tips for Digital Printing Success

Three Planning Tips for Digital Printing Success

Digital printing has opened up new possibilities for marketers and end users alike. Variable-data printing features such as personalized URLs have helped bridge the gap between print and online campaigns. Meanwhile, the speed, quality and versatility of today’s digital presses has broadened the scope of applications that are a fit for digital printing.

From a production standpoint, digital applications must be planned carefully before toner hits paper. With turnaround speed at a premium, there’s no time for surprises. Here are Pine Press Printing's top three planning tips for digital printing success:

1. Keep glue areas free of inks, toners and coatings.
Gluing is commonly used to seal direct mail pieces or form the spine on booklets. As with conventional inks, some glue formulas can have unpredictable reactions with the inks, toners and coatings used for digital applications. Whenever possible, remove these elements from the areas of your pieces that will receive remoist, fugitive or seam gluing. If this isn’t possible with your design, let Pine Press Printing test a sample in advance to ensure proper adhesion.

2. Crease your sheets prior to folding.
Digitally-printed products are susceptible to cracking at the fold for two reasons. First, digital inks and toners are fused to the surface of the paper. The fusing process uses high heat, which dries out the paper. To combat cracking, digitally-printed sheets should be creased to ensure crisp, accurate folds. For digital applications, creasing is superior to folder scoring, and more economical than letterpress scoring Pine Press Printing has specialized creasing equipment.

3. Provide ample project details to your printer.
Speed is the name of the game in digital printing. Complete job information is essential to meeting fast and frequent deadlines. Provide as many as details as possible to your printer about your project. In addition to the “basics” - quantity, finished size, services required, paper thickness, etc. - information such as packing instructions, shipping quantity and location breakdowns and the number of versions help maximize production efficiency and minimize confusion and delays.

Pine Press Printing: Specialized Solutions for a Digital Workflow
Pine Press Printing understands the demands of digital applications: Shorter runs, faster turnarounds, consistently high quality and on-time deliveries. Our range of services - including folding,  perfect binding, mechanical binding, and more - are geared to meet these demands. Call us today to begin planning your next digital success!

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Five Ways to Spice Up Your Brochure

Once in a while a brochure printing project comes up that provides the opportunity and budget for a stellar piece that will make the reader stop short. Or maybe you have been asked to create an annual report, and you are seeking highly skilled book printing and publishing companies. In either case, consider asking Pine Press Printing about new advances in paper coating.
Coating your press sheet can add depth and dimension to an otherwise flat piece of paper. Think of the various coatings—varnish, UV, and aqueous—as a way to make certain parts of the brochure jump out at the reader and other parts sit back in a more subdued manner. Then play these two options against one another within a single brochure to accent one element and downplay another. Here are five suggestions:

1. On a black background, perhaps a divider page in a book, create a type-only design, including a number of key words related to the content of the book. Use an attractive typeface, or a few typefaces, in a large point size. Overlap the words in various places. Make some of the words slightly lighter than the black background (maybe 80 percent black). Coat some of the words with gloss varnish and some of the words with dull varnish. Even consider using black foil stamping to print a few of the words. The end result will be a divider page in which some of the words seem to float in front of the others, some closer to you, some further away. (Ask your printer for help—early in the process–and expect to pay extra for the black ink, dull varnish, gloss varnish, and foil stamping.)
2. Print a background photo of a tree, and add sandpaper UV coating to accentuate the texture of the bark. When you rub the page between your fingers, you will experience the simulated roughness of the wood. A similar sensation, although slightly more rubbery than sandpaper UV, can be achieved with soft-touch aqueous coating. In both cases, you feel like you are touching a physical object, not a glossy photograph.
3. Start with a photograph of a glass or metal object (such as silverware or fine crystal). Add a high-sheen UV gloss coating. The smooth texture will reinforce the reflectivity and hardness of the glass or metal.
4. Expand upon the prior example (the photo of glass or metal) in the following way. Wherever you have not highlighted the metal or glass with UV gloss coating, add a dull UV varnish. The contrast between the dull background and the glossy metal or glass objects will make the glass or metal objects appear to come toward the viewer while the dull UV coating will make the background recede. (It’s a little like experiencing a 3-D movie.)
5. If your brochure highlights food, consider the texture of the food. Maybe it’s comfort food with a rough texture, like bakery delectables. Perhaps a textured coating will help the viewer subconsciously imagine the rough texture of bread or pastry. Or if you’re trying for a more upscale, high-styled look, use a gloss UV coating. This would be particularly powerful if the food you are showcasing in your brochure is coated with a sauce or some other moist surface that naturally reflects the light.

As you can see, these are all upscale images (food, fashion, luxury goods, etc.), and hence require more help from your printer and are more expensive. But once in a while the perfect project comes up for which the budget is available and these coating techniques are indispensable. Talk with your brochure printers and book printers early in the process.