How do I get something commercially printed?

There are two ways you can do this. Either go to a printer direct, or have your design company to do it for you.

Either way, you’ll need someone to create artwork that is ready-to-print. This is not the same as having a job designed. Once you are happy with design visuals supplied by your designer, you will need to have artwork made that the commercial printer can deal with. Considerations including colour, scope (number of pages), size and shape can all affect the cost and final quality of a print job.

If in doubt, ask the printer for a spec sheet – this will tell you everything you need to know about what the printer expects to receive from you in the way of artwork. Design companies, on the whole, are used to seeing this kind of information, and can tailor a design job to get the best from your budget and print method.

Sometimes a commercial printer will offer to do the creative work for you. This may be in-house, or they may have links with one or more design studios. Be careful to choose the right designer for the job.

Commercial printers invest huge amounts in presses and other machinery (printing press costs commonly run into the millions of pounds), so to make money, they have to print stuff. It’s common sense really, but stop to think about it, it doesn’t matter WHAT they are printing, so long as the press is running they make money – this should ring alarm bells if what you actually want is great design.

Rule of thumb: if you want bread, go to a baker, if you want print, go to a printer, if you want design, go to… er, you get the message.