Finding a New Printer in the European Union

A long-standing client of mine, who reprints her fashion color swatch books on a regular basis (essentially a collection of color samples on a screw-and-post assembly that help people select colors for clothing and cosmetics based on their complexion), is expanding her business. She has clients in Italy, and she is looking at printing closer to these clients to reduce shipping costs. My client asked me what I thought. I said I’d be pleased to do some research.

This is how I’m proceeding.

First of all, quality and printer reliability are of paramount concern. My client’s colors need to be consistent from print run to print run and from book to book. (I believe there are art files for 28 individual master copies from which my client may print between one and six copies each maybe three times a year for clients who have ordered the product. Essentially, my client needs on-demand printing, since each master copy pertains to a person with a specific complexion.)

When I print these books in the United States, I need to know the printer will be on time and on budget, and will provide superior quality. So far I have been pleased. If I absolutely had to, I could travel to the printer that currently produces this job if a problem should arise. That said, if I had problems with a printer all the way across the ocean in Italy (actually, my client has widened her search to include the entire European Union and not just Italy), that would be a bit more of an undertaking.

So the first thing I did was send specs for my client’s job (actually two related jobs) to the CEO of the Printing Industry Exchange (a longtime colleague and friend) for advice, to another printing broker who does business in China (I thought she might have contacts in other countries as well), and to my contact at the US printer that produces my client’s job regularly.

I haven’t heard back from everyone yet. It has only been a few days. But this is what I have learned so far:

1. My contact at the printer that produces my client’s color swatch books regularly will check around a bit and see if he can help. Moreover, he noted his experience of receiving deliveries from Ireland regularly for only $15 or so for each shipment.

2. My contact who is a broker has a client in the United Kingdom. This client may very well work with other printers that are either in England or in one of the EU countries.

So this is my takeaway from the process, so far, with just a few minutes of work invested, plus thoughts on how I will proceed. I share this with you because as a designer, art director, or print buyer, you may have a project that for one reason or another you have to print very far away.

First of all, the comment from the printer that currently produces this job about the cost of shipping other items is interesting. My client’s color swatch books are complex in their design but very small (less than 2" by about 3.5"). So even an entire print run of about 200 copies will fit in one carton and will not be heavy.

In contrast, if my client were printing in the United States and then sending an entire skid of print books overseas (as opposed to one box), then comparing this total printing and shipping cost to the cost of printing the books in Europe and delivering them locally might reflect a dramatic price difference. But in this particular case, the savings in freight costs might not warrant moving even a part of the print run to another country.

After all, the complete reliability of the current print vendor has high intrinsic value. This includes the cost savings of not paying to go overseas if a problem arises, plus the cost savings of satisfied customers.

So if you apply this to your own print buying scenario, you may want to consider the intangibles of a mutually advantageous relationship with one printer, or a number of printers. Price is only one variable.

The second take-away for me, and may also be for you, is that the best way to acquire new printers is through existing printers (if the work is outside their core competency) or other colleagues in your specific line of work. I personally would rely on referrals more than any promotional literature or even printed samples.

That said, once I have a handful of vendors, I do plan to request printed samples and perhaps ask for references. Everything helps.

Plus, here’s another idea you may find useful in your own work. Over the years I have stumbled upon printing brokers who specialize in overseas printing. One in particular represented an entire firm of overseas brokers (not just the one individual himself). In another case, I found representatives of overseas companies (with printing plants in India and China) who had business offices in the United States. The benefits are multi-fold:

1. The person, or firm, in question would know about (and coordinate) shipping regulations and port regulations (and paperwork).

2. A foreign national (an individual or company) printing in another country but with an office in the US would be more accessible if problems arise.

3. The person in question would be responsible for complete, accurate, and timely delivery, which would make your life much easier.

Along these same lines, I own a book on sales entitled Dig Your Well Before You Are Thirsty. It is by Harvey Mackay. The title implies that time spent on a regular basis nurturing mutually beneficial relationships with (in this case printing) vendors is vital, benefiting all aspects of your job and craft. This is worth taking to heart.

What are Chokes and Spreads?

I have always found the language of printing to be colorful. "Chokes" and "spreads" are a good example. Here are the precise definitions.

When two colors abut—that means they touch on the final, printed image—the "register" (or color alignment) must be precise. That is, if there is movement of the paper or press plates, even infinitesimal movement, there will be a white line between colors where they are out of register.

The way to avoid this is to expand one item (a spread) in one color such as a typescript letterform or to expand the background color into the typeset letter (a choke). The same kind of overlapping of abutting colors is done with non-type elements of a print design such as color artwork.

In most printing software, this is called "trapping." At the present stage of development of computer design and typesetting, trapping can be done automatically by your printer’s RIP (raster image processor). This is the software or hardware that translates the PostScript images of text and art into bitmapped images (i.e., turns them from mathematical curves and lines into printer spots/dots on a grid).

However, when I was new to computer graphics (back in the 1980s, when the software was very new and primitive in comparison to today’s design and photo editing packages), designers often had to do the trapping themselves in programs such as Adobe Illustrator.

Moreover, choosing which colors to overlap depended (and presumably still depends) on such things as which colors within the art are common (a certain percentage of each hue appears in both the background color and the foreground type, rule line, or illustration).

In the early days, one often had to define "strokes," the outside borders or lines surrounding a shape, image, or letterform. These strokes would be a bridge between the two abutting colors. A mistake could make the type look blurry or make the letterforms look fat.

So I am overjoyed that the current state of computer aided graphic design can automatically make such trapping adjustments on the fly as an InDesign art file is distilled into a press-ready PDF file.

(As an additional point, the trapping process described above implies knocking out--or omitting--one color behind another. In contrast, surprinting type, such as placing black type over a light background color, would not involve knocking out the background color. The black would just print directly over the light background color.)

[Steven Waxman is a printing consultant. He teaches corporations how to save money buying printing, brokers printing services, and teaches prepress techniques. Steven has been in the printing industry for thirty-three years working as a writer, editor, print buyer, photographer, graphic designer, art director, and production manager.]