9 Steps for Planning a Printing Project

Source - PaperLeafPrinting

Every printed project requires you to balance cost, schedule, and quality. You can save money printing a publication by planning early, and by accurately estimating which tasks you can accomplish, and which tasks you would prefer to have us handle. Here is a list of some specific items that you may want to keep in mind when developing your project:

1. Your project budget may be a determining factor in the selection of certain options such as paper, ink, and bindery. Imagine your project at both extremes—the minimum requirement and the maximum impact—and we’ll help you tailor your project to fit within the budget you’ve allowed.
   
   
2. Your schedule will play an important part in completing your project. We realize that schedules don’t always follow an ideal plan. Our production team is prepared to accommodate even the most demanding schedule.
   
   
3. Do you know how many copies you plan to print? When running a job through our high-speed copy department, each sheet costs just about the same, no matter how many sheets are run through the machine. However, for jobs running on the press, you might be surprised to know that ordering a few more copies generally does not add a lot of cost to your job.
   
   
4. The dimensions of your publication may have an impact on which equipment is used to produce your printing project. Once you finalize your product’s dimensions, we can begin to finalize our production process.
   
   
5. The colors you plan to specify can have a huge impact on the production of your final piece. In most cases, avoid specifying colors based on the way they appear on your monitor. Instead, for the most predictable results, let us help you choose colors from a color-matching system.
   
   
6. Determine who will be performing pre-press tasks. Accomplishing pre-press tasks can be easy with professional-quality software, but acquiring the skill and experience to do them takes time. If you are new to preparing printing projects, it may be worthwhile to leave the responsibility of pre-press tasks to our experienced pre-press team. As you gain experience, you may wish to consider investing in training and equipment to do more pre-press work yourself.
   
   
7. Your use of bleeds can have an effect on the production process. Bleeds (graphics that print past the trimmed edge of the page) must be accommodated through special handling and setup. Please allow an extra 1/8 inch for any graphics that bleed.
   
   
8. The graphics in your publication need to be prepared to printer-friendly specifications. Please see our Short Answers to Digital Questions section to become familiar with some of the basic requirements for preparing graphics.
   
   
9. Your choice of finishing and binding (if any) will complete the job. Many customers are not aware that we can help you complete your project with our full-service bindery. Finishing and bindery services consist of more than just cutting and folding. You might be surprised at the variety of options available that can add value to your project!