We undertake the following types of printing:

(a) Screen Printing
(b) Offset Printing

Offset printing is an automatic printing process. The four colours CMYK are printed one by one on the paper. Offset printing becomes necessary in the following circumstances : (a) Large quantity of print order: If you need large quantities of some material printed, offset printing is the right choice. Offset printing will not only be cost effective but will also be quicker. (b) Type of design : With offset printing you can print any kind of a job. If it’s a four colour (CMYK) design which has different gradation of colours or if there are photographs, offset printing is the only option even if you have to print a small quantity. Of course, today’s technology allows you to print even a single piece of four-colour posters, cost effectively with digital printing. There are also what are commonly known as Mini Offset printing presses. Mini offset printing presses are mostly used for small print jobs, usually in 1 or 2 colours, like circular letters, questionnaires for research and business forms. Mini offset printing is not suitable for four colour jobs. We are involved in the complete process of offset printing including the following:

• Developing positives
• Developing Proofing/Bluelines
• Pasting
• Making of plates
• The Press-Check
• Printing
• Drying
• Lamination
• Folding
• Binding
• Cutting
• Packing

Some clients are willing to spend a few extra bucks in order to use special printing effects. These are either companies who sell big-ticket items such as condominiums and financial services, or firms that are looking to impress clients and stockholders with fancy corporate capabilities brochures and annual reports. Some of these special effects are discussed below.

These two processes give the printed matter on the paper a raised (embossed) or a depressed (debossed) impression. Designers use three-dimensional impressions through embossing and debossing to create a “positive disturbance” in the mind of the reader. This also creates an element of surprise as the reader is accustomed to seeing flat, two-dimensional design elements in a printed matter.

You can cut your printed advertising and promotional material in different interesting shapes by using dies. A die is made of the shape that you are interested in cutting the printed material. If the brochure is in a rectangle or square shape, dies are not required for cutting. Such shapes can be cut with the help of the cutting machine without preparing a die. However, any other shape would need a custom die to be made which would involve additional cost.

Foil stamping is used in college diplomas and professional certificates to create the effect of an official seal. This same interesting effect can be created on advertising and promotional material like brochures.

In thermography, raised letters are created by heat. The raised letters that this process creates are often used on the cover of a brochure to give the reader a pleasing experience. The items commonly printed by the thermography process are visiting cards, letterheads and greeting cards. Thermographed printed materials look like embossed ones.

Colours can be enhanced during printing by overprinting a gloss or matte varnish – or a combination of both. For example, a gloss varnish could be added to the photographs in a brochure to bring out the brilliance of the colours. Then the rest of the page could be treated with a matte or dull varnish for an attractive contrast. A varnish will also protect dark-coloured pages from becoming nicked, scratched or marred by fingerprints. Screen printing on the other hand is a mechanical process. This type of printing is obtained by spreading and forcing ink through a stencil, a screen or a mesh of silk fabric. The first step of screen printing involves the stretching of the fabric tightly on the wooden frame. This is followed by stapling the fabric on a wooden frame. The screen frame is hinged to the baseboard. The ink or colour is then spread on the upper side of the screen and brought into contact with the paper placed below the screen on the baseboard. The colour is forced through the pores of the screen with a rubber squeegee, thus creating an image on the paper placed under it. The screen is then raised and the printed piece is removed. The action goes on repeating till the desired number of copies are printed. The images are obtained by depositing ink on paper placed under the frame.

With screen printing, you can print on all types of materials. It is commonly used for printing letterheads, visiting cards, invitation cards, envelopes and similar items. We have printed letterheads on offset printing when we wanted to print large quantities, that is, say in the range of 4000-5000. But people usually print letterheads in small quantities ranging from 100 to 1000 in which case screen printing is a more cost effective option. Similarly, business cards or visiting cards are almost always printed in small quantities with screen printing. It can be considered as a cheap printing method because it can make do without any expensive equipment. The prints can be colourful too. The number of colours is not the limitation. The amount of ink applied in screen printing is far greater than in offset printing which accounts for some of the unusual effects in screen printing.

Each colour printed is considered an impression. The more the number of the colours, the more the impressions and also the cost. Also, for instance in a letterhead, if you want something printed on the top as well as the bottom in the same colour, it will be counted as two impressions thereby catapulting the cost. This is because the two items to be printed are far from each other and will have to be printed separately. This type of printing is suitable under the following circumstances.

• Small quantity of print run: Small quantities can be printed cost effectively with screen printing. You want to print 100 visiting cards, screen printing is the printing process to go for. It is because of this reason that most stationary items like letterheads, visiting cards and envelopes are printed with this type of printing because you usually want them printed in small quantities. You can also print these items by offset printing but the quantities will have to be large to make the printing cost effective. Screen printing is cost effective for small quantities.
• Short deadlines: Screen-printing can be done in a very short time. But in the case of large quantities, it becomes a slow process because it has to make do without high-speed machines.
• All types of colours: This type of printing also facilitates the use of any colour – glossy or matt enamel paints, plastic colours, fluorescent paint and textile colours.
• Over-printing: This is the only process where over-printing by light colour on dark colour is possible.
• Inexpensive: All the materials used in screen printing are simple, inexpensive and easy to handle.

The following are the disadvantages of screen-printing :

• Complicated designs: Screen printing is simply not cut out for designs which require high degree of accuracy and alignment
• Large quantities: Printing larger quantities with screen printing is expensive as compared to offset printing
• Visuals: Designs with pictures cannot be printed with screen printing unless the pictures are in line drawing.
• Type of design : With screen printing you cannot print all kind of print jobs. First, you cannot print jobs with different gradation of colour. With screen printing you can only print solid colours. Second, it cannot print photographs as photographs have different gradation of colours. Third, you cannot print intricate and complicated designs because of alignment problems. If a number of different colours are to be printed right next to each other, you can expect problems with screen printing. This is because screen printing is a manual process. It is difficult to align different elements of designs very near to each other.

When you know that printing will be done by screen printing, you will have to design your advertising and promotional material in a manner which is suitable for screen printing. Also, you will have to ensure that the design does not require very precise alignment while printingLet me cite a personal experience. I wanted to print 20 half A4 size posters. Using offset printing to print these posters would have been very expensive. I developed the design in a manner that screen printing could be done and I printed the pin-up posters in half a day and at a fraction of the cost that offset printing would have cost me. Of course, if I want to print 2000 copies of these posters, it would be more economical for me to go for offset printing.