At Maslands we fully appreciate that print can be a complex, daunting and expensive process. We want to help all you print buyers out there understand the best way to buy all of your print solutions by making transparent the key issues involved.
However, by its very nature, every print job is unique and therefore if you have any questions at all, please feel free to pick up the phone and discuss your needs with any of the team at Maslands.
Design, art work and proofing
Obviously most printed material is intended to look good to the end user. Most printers simply print whatever the customer (or their designer) tells them to print. However it may not be obvious until the final job is produced that it doesn’t look exactly as originally intended.
It may therefore be important for you to see a high-resolution digital proof BEFORE going fully to print. Or you may want our designers’ input into the job so we can explain the impact of certain colours and fonts at the design stage rather than let you see flaws in the finished article.
When buying print you need to consider whether more investment up front in the design, artwork and proofing stages is worthwhile, to be absolutely sure of the look and feel of the final job, BEFORE you spend money on the actual print run.
Volume
A large part of any print job is the set-up of the machine in preparation for printing. Therefore the cost to keep the machine running means that larger volumes cost proportionately less. For example, a print run of 1,000 documents may cost £500, whereas 2,000 might only cost another £100 and 5,000 may only cost £800. Therefore if you want 1,000 business letterheads it may be better to buy 3,000 even if this looks like it may last you a year.
Make sure you understand the price/volume options for your print jobs and discuss these with your printer to get the best deal for you.
Timing of the job
It is much more efficient for printers to keep machines running for as long a period as possible, and therefore planning ahead what jobs will be on the machine and when, is important to them. Equally, for some customers the delivery time is crucial (Christmas cards delivered on 26 December are worthless, and brochures not produced on time for a product launch, may have a big impact on your business).
Make sure your printer knows the key dates for you, and check that they are able to deliver to your deadlines. The more time you can give them the more likely they are to hit the dates and the lower the price should be.
Quality of the end product
It may seem obvious, but there is a wide range of choice for customers in the quality of the end product. A key detail is the type of paper (stock) that is used. For some jobs it may be perfectly OK to use low grade stocks, for internal paperwork or flyers etc. For other jobs it may be critical to use a significantly superior stock that promotes a “quality”message to whoever the material is aimed at. Consider for example the quality of the stock in a ‘TV Times’which is only expected to survive one week,with that of ‘Hello’ magazine which may stay on coffee tables for a month or more.
In addition there are many different types of finishes that can be applied to make a job look and feel different. You should decide on the significance of the final finish and explore with your printer the benefits and cost of each option. Make sure that you compare each quote you receive, as a lower price almost always means lower quality.
These are just a few of the key issues to make sure that you get the best results and the best value for money from your printer. There are many suppliers out there who can offer cheaper prices for printing, but as with every other purchase you make, there is a compromise between quality and price.
At Maslands we strive to be open and clear with our customers on the choices they have to reduce costs and the consequent impact on quality, or in many cases the options to spend a little bit more and improve the impact and end quality of the job enormously.
Printing Business Cards | Postcards | Flyers | Leaflets | Letterheads | Compliment Slips | Stationery Sets | Posters | Brochures | Folders | Greetings Cards | Wrapping Paper...
