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I got involved with a bit of management on a couple of print jobs this week, picking up some half-finished projects nearing completion, getting them ready for approval to go off to the printers. Anyway, I got to playing with the right printer for the right job and the right sizes for the right printing presses and it reminded me of a couple of often overlooked thoughts when setting up print jobs leaving with me with three ways to reduce print costs. And, you can save yourself quite a lot of money if you make a few minor amendments to your job and shop around.

1. Printers Print On Standard Sheet Sizes

Either SRA sizes or B sizes in the UK - and if you ever used to make cookies as a kid, using a round cookie cutter, you may remember how few you could cut out of a rolled out sheet of cookie-dough, how much waste there was and how you had to re-roll the dough a couple of times to get more with the left-overs

You obviously can’t do that with paper and print but you can design your piece to fit more (cost) effectively on a sheet of paper - without too much wastage. Bear in mind thought that printers do need larger paper sizes to print and then trim your job to size, so you can’t necessarily cram work right up to the edges. Eg, an A3 sheet (297 x 420mm) is printed onto, then cut, from an SRA3 sheet (320 x 450mm).

Don’t compromise, but think clever. One of the jobs we recently did, we changed from an 4-page A5 portrait to a DL landscape. This meant that we could get 3 out of an SRA3 rather than 2. Over a print run of 5000, that’s quite a saving.

2. Different Printers For Different Jobs

One of the biggest problems for printing companies is the constant need to invest in kit - kit that isn’t exactly cheap - and although the technology side of things is increasing efficiency for them, there is still a need to commercially maximise what that have.

But, any efficiency only transfers to prices if the jobs suit their particular set-up, which may be restricted by the amount of colours their presses print in one go, ie. 1, 2, 4, 5 colour presses, how many hours a day it is running, how long it takes to ‘wash-up’ ready for the next job, and how much finishing equipment they have ion-house, etc. and depending on the type of job you give them, their prices will fluctuate in terms of the competition. For instance, if you wanted some simple black and white flyers on cheap paper and are not worried about quality, you wouldn’t tend to go to a printers with a five-colour press and vice-versa.

Larger print companies can cover more bases, but it does pay to assign the right kind of job to the right-sized print company. You will find that some are more efficient on variations such as:

• Print run size
• Physical size of job
• No. of colours printed
• Amount (and type of) finishing required - not all finishing is done in-house by printers

A good example of this are two particular printers I use. Take an four page A4 brochure on a standard stock: I know that if the run is below 5000 I will chose one rather than the other but if it goes over 5000, the other printer will become more cost-effective.

3. Hungry Printers

One last point, for the more ruthless of you, and it’s not a tact I like to take as I have developed relationships with good printers, who just happen to be nice guys. Print is a hard trade to be in at the moment and I have seen many print companies in Basingstoke, large and small, go to the wall in the past ten years and as sad as it is, it also creates a buyers market.

We also get calls from printers all over Europe, especially eastern Europe, who can print and deliver a job, just as cheap as a company around the corner.

You also get batch printers like Printing.Com who work to standard sizes, require your job to be supplied in an exact format and then run your print job with other people’s work. This can save you money on the print run, but may incur more costs to you for set-up from your designers. Some printers may argue about colour distribution across jobs making as well, but I have used companies like this to great effect. It’s another option.

Print Management Does Work

All of the points above are the reason we don’t print ourselves at The Escape. We did get into digital print for a couple of years but the investment was too high so we stuck to
print management. And, the great thing is, we work with some great trade printers , allowing us to remain competitive with some added advantages:

• we can choose the right printer for the right job to keep costs down
• we don’t get bottlenecks in production as the work gets spread
• we don’t need to invest in expensive equipment
• we are more customer service focussed

That said, horses for courses. I have learned the hard way but print is not a simple process. Different colours print differently and different papers soak ink in different ways, if at all. The more you can know, or want to know, the more informed you can be. Or, you can find a company that advise.

That’s why, my suggestion is to find a print company (or two depending on how much print you place) and develop your relationship with them. Ask for advice and look for suggestions.