I remember back in the day….. a lot of print shops had a sign in the front lobby that said:

In a way, we all thought that was kind of funny, but in another way (quiet and stoic), it was the rule printers lived by. Seriously in 1991, could you imagine somebody demanding all 3 of those things? OK, fast forward 20 years to 2011, can you imagine a good customer not expecting (or demanding) all three?

For some reason at lunch the other day, I was talking to Bob about that old sign, we found it really funny. Then we started reminiscing about how we used to do stuff (and we were pretty cutting edge at the time for small print shops). First off, in 1991, 4 color presses were very big and expensive, and only the large printing companies owned that kind of equipment (color control sucked back in that day also). They just did not make (nor could we afford) small, compact, super efficient 5 color presses like we have today. So just to be competitive, a lot of us were running 2 color presses (think AB Dick’s and Ryobi’s) and putting this piece of paper through the press multiple times….Uggg, the thought of that just gives me the shakes.

Secondly, it all needed to be done in film, with some sort of color key proofs….yes, we were all masters of the stripping table, with multiple lay-sheets, pin register systems…. OK, you get the point, if you were in a print shop in the 80′s and 90′s, and we look back at how we did stuff, it just seems archaic.

Now, I look at what we are achieving in finished jobs, and it just blows me away. I keep writing blogs about cool projects we do, because it still amazes me what we can do. Of course, the digitization of content is behind so many of the changes, but maybe for fun we look a little closer at some of these changes.

The prep part of printing, or as we call it, the pre-press. Maybe this is the best part. When things were analog, all the different elements of a job needed to be on a separate layer, kind of like in photoshop, but in this case, each layer was a separate piece of film (with cool pin systems so that we could make sure that all layers registered, but had to be applied manually). The ability to put everything into 1 digital image that contains all tints, solids, and all the color separations is incredible when compared to 1991 technology….think Adobe PDF Print Engine 2.

And the actual printing part. And maybe this is the best part. Like with the prep portion, technology has really elevated the equipment. No more ink keys (ink profiles are picked up in pre-press and transferred to the press), infra dryers hold down powder and so on….Think Heidelberg PrintMaster.

Where am I going with all of this? The point is, if we don’t consistently deliver a good price, a high quality product, and turn it around real quickly, we can’t even come to the party. And then once we get there, we have to have friendly people that understand not only printing, they have to be creative enough to solve problems, have enough empathy to understand the customers point of view and so on. And this extends well beyond offset printing…. it goes for finishing, digital printing, mailing, wide format printing, promotional items and a lot more. In a way, it’s become simple enough….just take a digital image, and apply it where needed, as many times as needed and tightly control the process. And then do it for the Right Price, Make it Look Good, AND do it Quick!

It started with a call from Matt Flick at SAA. Matt had designed a pocket folder for the Dayton Country Club that was  a little challenging. First, lets move back to last year. Matt had designed (4)  5.5 x 8.5 brochures for Golf, Weddings and  other events/services that DCC offers, so we needed to come with something that would hold all 4 brochure and actually display them (sorry, Matt had to design something to hold them) We could take  a regular 9 x 12 pocket folder, put the brochures inside so they stacked on top of each other, tumbled around (because they fit in so loose) and in the end looked like you just put 4 brochures in a pocket folder because you did not have a better way to hold them….or better yet, you didn’t have a “system” to hold them. So Matt came up with a pretty cool solution.

I stopped by to see Matt, and he had it all sketched out on a piece of 8.5 x 11 paper. It all seemed to make sense (at least on paper)…Print a big piece of paper 1/sided (28″ x 20″), fold it in half to make it 10 x 28, and then you could have 4 panels that were 7 x 10 when folded up, with a slit in each panel to hold a brochure. Heck, when folded and all four pieces inserted, it would even fit in a golf bag..imagine this, a guy could come out for a game of golf, grab info for the daughters wedding or what ever (even a class reunion), tuck it in the golf bag, play a round and have it when he gets home. Cool thing being that when you got it home, all 4 brochures fit real nicely inside and it was in real good shape.

It all made sense on paper, but… So I put together a dummy. I used the old light table and cut down a piece of 23 x 35 80# Gloss cover to 20 (tall) x 28 (wide), and folded it in half to 10 x 28 (I did have to use my blade to lightly cut a score into it so it would fold right). I had cut 4 slits before I folded it that were 5.9″ (those would hold the brochures, again, Matt’s idea). So I glued it up with a glue stick and then closed gate folded it into 4 panels of 7″. once again I had to put a light cut to act as a score and the fold was a little rough (a lot of paper in the middle, thus kind of buckling). A little rough, but I know it would work…the only worry was the buckling paper in the middle.

I talked to Mike at CFP (Custom Formed Products) and he thought he could make a die that would work and do the cutting, folding & Glueing. He also said we might need to cut relief slits on the 10″ x 28″ panel that was the “inside panel. That worried me a little, as we were only going to print on 1 side, and 1/8″ relief slits would show white from the panel underneath, and the inside was flooded with green (like Country Club Green).

Well, at least at this point, we knew what it would take to get it done, the cost to do it, and had a real good idea of how it would work and what it would look like. Since it didn’t cost anything, we made cheap low res ink-jet and cut it out (with the relief slits) just to make sure, show it to the customer, and we all agreed it’s cool.

After a full color proof (and I’m not adding the part of what a totally cool piece this was, due to Matt’s awesome design skills), we printed the big sheets (added an aqueous coat to avoid fingerprints) and got them down to Mike to die cut. As always Custom Formed did a killer (precision) job of die cutting, folding in half, gluing and then closed gate folding them (gluing & folding by hand). Mike had made a die with all the scores, slits (relief slits + brochure slits) so that they just folded up perfect.

I guess that wasn’t that complicated a project, but it was just one of those special ones that I thought came our very cool. And it goes to show that even when at first, I thought this one might be clinging to a wing and a prayer to work, the designer had a vision and we worked it till we got the results we wanted.

From Both sides, you can see the brochure slits as well as the relief slits on the inside. I didn't have any brochures when shooting, but they stuck inside very nicely, and when folded would still fit into a golf bag.

Digital printing has really start to hit it’s stride at Oregon Printing over the last year. Since we added a new Xerox Digital Press last year, our digital print sales are consistently growing. It’s great for those quantities between 1 and 500; some of the things that we are doing consistantly on the digital are

• Full color tri fold and by-fold brochures
• Full color sales sheets to go into pocket folders
• 1/sided and 2/sided color business cards on up to 100# stock
• Color Programs and event books
• Wedding invitations and Holiday cards
• Full color, full bleed posters up to 12 x 18

Color programs rolling off the new machine

I ofter hear about people that go to their local office supply or nationwide quick print chains and they have great equipment but their staffs are untrained in color management and as a result they don’t get the consistency they are looking for. We have put a lot of training into our digital print operators who understand commercial color management to begin with (they come from the pressroom and prepress), and Xerox has also given us a lot of support in that effort. The result is consistent color from job to job, which is a real advantage for customers when they need to establish a trust level that jobs will consistently look good.

Plus, I can’t say how sweet it is to have trained Adobe output experts on staff.

So check it out, it just gets better every day.