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What is the process for printing step-by-step?

Craig Sheer is the owner of Sheer Print Solutions, located in New York City & Portchester, NY. We are the proven leader for affordable, high-quality Digital and Offset, and Large Format Printing in NYC. Sheer Printing Solutions is your single source for solutions to all your printing, binding, warehousing and fulfillment needs.


Printing — Lithography Topic Hub: Printing Process Overview

University of Illinois Library Wordmark

University of Illinois Library Wordmark

Basic information on lithographic printing, including pollution prevention options and links to additional resources.

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  • Background and OverviewToggle Dropdown
    • Printing Process Overview
    • Lithographic Printing Process Flow Diagrams
    • Prepress — Imaging Process
    • Prepress — Platemaking Process
    • Production — Printing Process
    • Finishing — Post Press Operations

    Printing Process Overview

    Direct vs indirect printing

    The five major printing processes are distinguished by the method of image transfer and by the general type of image carrier employed. Depending upon the process, the printed image is transferred to the substrate either directly or indirectly.

    In direct printing the image is transferred directly from the image carrier to the substrate, examples of direct printing are gravure, flexography, screen printing and letterpress printing processes.

    In indirect, or offset, printing, the image is first transferred from the image carrier to the blanket cylinder and then to the substrate. Lithography, currently the dominant printing technology, is an indirect (offset) process.

    Image carriers

    Image carriers (or plates) are generally be classified as relief, planographic, intaglio, or screen.

    • In relief printing, the image or printing area is raised above the non-image areas. Letterpress and flexography are relief printing processes.
    • In planographic printing, the image and nonimage areas are on the same plane. The image and nonimage areas are defined by differing physiochemical properties. Lithography is a planographic process.
    • In the intaglio process, the nonprinting area is at a common surface level with the substrate while the printing area, consisting of minute etched or engraved wells of differing depth and/or size, is recessed. Gravure is an intaglio process.
    • In the screen process (also known as porous printing), the image is transferred to the substrate by pushing ink through a porous mesh which carries the pictorial or typographic image.

    Steps of the printing process

    Each printing process is divided into prepress, press, and postpress steps.

    • Prepress operations encompass steps during which the idea for a printed image is converted into an image carrier such as a plate, cylinder, or screen. Prepress operations include composition and typesetting, graphic arts photography, image assembly, and image carrier preparation.
    • Press refers to actual printing operations.
    • Postpress primarily involves the assembly of printed materials and consists of binding and finishing operations.

    Chemical use

    Each process uses a variety of chemicals, depending on the operation involved.

    • Prepress operations typically involve photoprocessing chemicals and solutions.
    • Inks and cleaning solvents are the major types of chemicals used during press operations.
    • Depending on the finishing work required, postpress operations can use large amounts of adhesives. This is especially true where the production of books and directories is involved.

    Of all the chemicals used in a typical printing plant, inks and organic cleaning solvents are the categories used in the largest quantities. Many of the chemicals used in the printing industry are potential hazards to human health and the environment.


    Prepress Operations

    Introduction

    Prepress consists of those operations required to convert the original idea, such as a photo or sketch, for a printed image into a printing plate or other image carrier.

    Prepress steps include:

    • composition and typesetting,
    • graphic arts photography,
    • image assembly,
    • color separation, and
    • image carrier preparation.

    With the exception of image carrier preparation, the prepress process is similar for the five major printing processes. Plateless process do most of the prepress steps using a computer.

    Typesetting and Composition

    During composition, text, photographs and artwork are assembled to produce a “rough layout” of the desired printed image. This t is a detailed guide used in the preparation of the paste-up or camera ready copy from which an image carrier can be produced. Traditionally, rough layouts and paste-ups were composed by hand using:

    • drafting boards;
    • light tables;
    • various paste-up tools such as technical pens, rulers, and cutting tools; and
    • adhesives.

    The text used in the paste-up was typeset and printed mechanically.

    However, composition has changed dramatically with the advent of computers. Both type and artwork are generated and edited using computers. Computer systems are equipped with both optical character recognition and photographic image scanners and digitizers so that pre-typed material and photographic images are easily incorporated into the document being composed.

    With the systems now available, the computer can directly drive the typesetting and image carrier preparation processes once the page or entire document is laid out and ready for printing.

    Typesetting operations assemble the type characters into pages. There are a number of typesetting methods including:

    • manual assembly of pieces of metal type (letterpress),
    • mechanical assembly of lines of type, and
    • phototypesetting.

    Until the 1950s, the majority of typesetting was performed using the Linotype machine which produces a “slug” or line of type from molten metal. Similar machines produced single characters of type.

    Today, phototypesetting devices have almost completely replaced manual and mechanical methods of typesetting. Phototypesetting devices, first demonstrated in the late nineteenth century, were introduced commercially in the early 1950s. They rapidly overtook the Linotype and similar machines in importance.

    In phototypesetting, individual type characters or symbols are exposed onto photographic film or paper. In early mechanical phototypesetting units, entire fonts of characters were stored as negatives on film. Computer-driven phototypesetters generate images electronically, then use a laser to project the image onto the photographic film or paper.

    Phototypesetting produces high contrast, high resolution images ideal for printing purposes. Other computer driven output devices, which include strike-on, line, ink-jet, and laser printers are used extensively in-plant printing applications.

    Copy Assembly and Process Photography

    Copy assembly consists of bringing all original work (text, pictures, and illustrations) together and preparing photographic images. The photographic images are either positive or negative films and are used for photomechanical image carrier preparation. Copy must be set up correctly to ensure the finished image carrier will produce a high quality print.

    Assembled copy that is ready for the photographic process is called a flat. When copy of various sizes and shapes is assembled for transfer to film, the process is called image assembly or stripping. The printing industry depends heavily on the use of highly specialized photographic equipment, methods, and materials to produce high quality printed material.

    Process photography refers to the photographic techniques used in graphic arts. Prior to the invention of electronic page making systems, virtually all printing processes employed photomechanical methods of making image carriers.

    Two important types of photography used in the preparation of image carriers are line and halftone photography. Neither of these processes can be used to print a true continuous-tone photograph (i.e., a photograph with intermediate or graduated tones) though halftone can achieve the illusion of continuous tones. Letterpress, lithography, screen printing, and some gravure methods involve both these types of photography.

    Line photography is used to produce high contrast images on film. Image areas on the film are solid black; little or no illusion of intermediate tones can be achieved with this method. As noted above, using halftone photography achieves the the illusion of intermediate tones for letterpress, lithography, lateral dot gravure, and screen printing.

    In halftone photography, continuous-tone images are broken down into high-contrast dots of equal density but varying sizes and shapes. (Depending upon the type and quality of printing being done, the density of dots varies from 24 to 120 per centimeter). For example, if very small dots are used in one area of an image, that area appears to be lighter than those areas of the image where larger dots are used. This occurs because more of the lighter color substrate remains visible in the areas where the very small dots are used.

    Image Carrier Preparation

    Some form of image carrier is used in each of the five printing processes that now dominate the industry. The image carrier, often a plate, is used to transfer ink in the form of the image to the substrate. The image carrier must pick up ink only in the areas where ink is to be applied to the final image on the substrate. It must also reject ink in the areas of the image where it is not wanted.

    Relief plates used in letterpress and flexographic printing have raised areas that pick ink up from the inking source. Non-printing areas are recessed below the level of the inking rollers and therefore are not coated with ink.

    The printing areas of a gravure image carrier reverse the relief plate. They are recessed below the level of the non-printing areas. The depressions, referred to as cells, pick up small amounts of ink as they pass through an ink fountain. The ink is then passed to the substrate from the cells. The surface of the plate is constantly scraped clean with a doctor blade so that no ink is retained except in the cells. Most gravure presses use a cylindrical image carrier, although some sheet-fed gravure presses and intaglio plate printing presses use a flat plate.

    Planographic plates, used in offset lithography, have both the image and non-image areas on the same plane. The image and non-image areas of the plate are each defined by differing physicochemical properties. The image areas are treated to be hydrophobic (water-repellant ) and oleophilic (oil receptive). Ink will adhere to these areas. The non-image areas, on the other hand, are treated to be hydrophilic (water loving), and will not accept ink.

    The image carrier in screen printing consists of a porous screen. A stencil or mask of an impermeable material is overlaid on the screen to create the non-image area. The image is printed by forcing ink through the stencil openings and onto the substrate. The stencil openings determine the form and dimensions of the imprint produced. The primary method of image carrier preparation is the photomechanical process where a printing image is produced from a photographic image. Typically, with this process, a light sensitive coating is applied to a plate or other type of image carrier. The plate is then exposed to a negative or positive of a photographic image. The exposed plate then undergoes further processing steps.

    There are other methods of image carrier preparation, including manual, mechanical, electrochemical, electronic, and electrostatic. Some of these processes, such as the manual and the mechanical processes, are of little or no commercial importance. Other processes, such as the electromechanical preparation of gravure cylinders, are discussed within the gravure process description.

    Photomechanical Image Carrier Preparation

    Photomechanical image carrier preparation begins with a plate, cylinder or screen that has been treated with a light-sensitive coating, the types of which are discussed in the following section.

    The coated plate is exposed to light that has first passed through a transparent image carrier such as a film positive or negative. The exposed plate is then processed to produce a plate with defined printing and non-printing areas. Typically, the exposed areas on the plate are resistant to the developing solutions used to process the plate, though in some cases the opposite is true.

    In either case, during processing the soluble areas of the coating are washed away while the insoluble areas remain on the plate. At this point image carriers produced from film negatives are essentially finished. The insoluble areas of coating remaining on the plate become the ink carrier during printing. Letterpress plates and lithographic surface plates are produced this way.

    With image carriers made from film positives, the insoluble coating serves as a protective barrier during a further processing step called etching. The coating on this type of image carrier is often referred to as a “resist” because it resists the acid used to etch the plate surface. Image carriers produced by this method are used in lithography, gravure, and screen printing.

    Light-sensitive Coatings

    The three most important light-sensitive coatings used on image carriers are photopolymers, diazos, and bichromated colloids. Silver-halide and electrostatic coatings are used infrequently for special purpose plates used in duplicating equipment.

    Photopolymeric Coatings

    Most image carriers (printing plates) are made using any of a number of different types of photopolymeric coatings. These coatings are characterized by the type of reaction they undergo upon exposure to UV light:

    • photopolymerization,
    • photocrosslinking,
    • photo arrangement, and
    • photo degradation.

    A well known example of a photopolymer coating is Kodak Photo Resist (KPR), a photo cross-linking polymer, which is used in image carrier preparation for all major printing processes as well as in the preparation of printed circuit boards.

    Depending on the type of image carrier being produced, the hardened photopolymer coating may remain on the image carrier as either the image or non-image area following processing. Photopolymer coatings are characterized by wearability, temperature and humidity stability, and long storage life. Some also exhibit good solvent resistance. For example, if baked prior to use, lithographic plates produced using photopolymer coatings can be used for press runs in excess of one million impressions.

    Diazo Coatings

    Diazo coatings, introduced in the printing industry around 1950, are used primarily for coating both presensitized and wipe-on lithographic surface plates. For presensitized plates, the diazo coating is applied by a machine called a whirler which spreads the coating on the rotating plate.

    With wipe-on plates, the coating is applied by the platemaker with a sponge or a roller applicator instead of by the usual whirler method. Diazo coatings are very thin and susceptible to abrasion and wear during the printing run and generally are used for short press runs of 75,000 impressions or less. However, pre-lacquered plates, plates supplied by the manufacturer with a lacquer impregnated in the plate coating, offer superior abrasion resistance and can be used for press runs in excess of 100,000 impressions.

    Most diazo plates have negative-process coatings, though positive process coatings are also used. Diazo coatings are used to presensitized deep-etch and bi-metal plates. Additionally, diazo is used to sensitize some colloid coatings.

    The diazo resin most often used for plates is the condensation product of 4-diazodiphenylamine salt with formaldehyde. Diazo oxides such as pyridol[1,2-a]benzimidazol-8-yl-3(4H)-diazo-4(3H)-oxo-1-naphthalenesulfonate are also used (Kirk-Othmer).

    Diazos are not usually affected by temperature and relative humidity and have a relatively long storage life. They can be processed by automatic plate processing machines, which speeds up production and results in much higher quality plates than manual methods. Automatic processing equipment can perform plate coating and exposure all in one continuous process. These machines are used extensively in newspaper printing.

    Bichromated Colloid Coatings

    Bichromated colloid coatings were widely used until the early 1950s and are in limited use today. They consist of a light sensitive bichromate and a collodion. The bichromate of choice is ammonium bichromate, with potassium bichromate used in special processes such as collotype. A collodion is an organic material that is capable of forming a strong continuous coating when applied to the image carrier.

    Colloid ions used for photoengraving are shellac, glue, albumin, and polyvinyl alcohol. Albumin, casein, alpha protein, polyvinyl alcohol, and gum arabic are used for lithography. Gelatin is used mostly for gravure, screen printing, and collotype. The colloid is formed when the finely divided bichromate and the collodion are mixed. Applied to the image carrier and exposed to light, the colloid forms an continuous, insoluble coating.

    The 3 Steps of the Printing Process

    What are the steps of the printing process? We’re glad you asked!

    There are three primary stages of commercial printing: prepress, press, and post press. In this section, we’ll explain each step in detail so you can better understand how the print process works.

    1. Prepress

    Prepress is the first step of the commercial printing process, and it’s where all the planning and preparation occur. Most of the prepress steps are done via computer.

    This step includes composition, typesetting, graphic arts photography, formatting files according to industry standards, and image assembly. These prepress operations prepare the concept for a printed image to be converted into an image carrier, such as a plate, cylinder, or screen.

    The steps also involve converting digital files into a form that the press can understand and using software to prepare the files for printing. During the prepress step, proofing for errors and more is also done to ensure everything looks perfect before printing. The result should be an accurate representation of what the final product will look like once printed.

    2. Press

    Once the prepress steps have been completed, it’s time to move on to the press stage, where the actual printing process occurs. This phase involves setting up the presses and printing the image onto a substrate (such as paper or plastic), using either an offset printing press or a digital press.

    For each job, the specific press setup is dependent on the type of substrate being used. For example, you might need to use a different printing plate or ink colors than usual in order to achieve the desired effect on certain materials. During this phase, it’s also important to make sure everything is correctly aligned, as any misalignments or shifts in color can ruin an entire print run.

    3. Post Press

    Once the printing is complete, it’s time to move on to the post press phase. This stage involves operations such as trimming, folding, scoring, and binding. It includes finishing processes like embossing, die-cutting, varnishing, laminating, and more. These processes achieve a certain look or feel, such as a glossy finish or special shape.

    Lastly, post press operations involve packaging the printed materials for shipping or storing them until they’re ready for distribution. This stage is about making sure your prints arrive in pristine condition, and that they look exactly the way you intended them to.

    Which Printing Process Is Most Commonly Used for Commercial Printing?

    A few of the most popular printing processes for commercial projects are direct-to-press printing, digital printing, lithography, flexography, and screen printing. However, the most popular option for commercial printing is offset printing, also known as lithography printing.

    Lithography printers are printing presses that use a series of cylinders to transfer an image onto paper or other substrates. It is widely used in the industry for its ability to produce high-quality prints in large volumes more quickly and cost-effectively than other processes. Common applications for lithography printing include magazines, brochures, stationery and sell sheets.

    Digital presses are also gaining popularity due to their efficiency, affordability, and flexibility. This type of printing is used for short-run projects or those with frequent updates.

    Industries That Use Commercial Printing Services

    Commercial printing is used in various industries, including publishing, advertising and marketing, retail packaging, product labels, signage and banners, and more.

    The creative possibilities offered by commercial printing make it invaluable for businesses that need to produce high-quality printed materials quickly. It’s especially useful for those who want to make their products stand

    The printing process. How it works and how items get printed.

    Printing holds a vitally important place in humanity’s existence as it was the first method of mass communication and helped usher in the modern period of human history.

    Its creation is credited to Johannes Gutenberg who first printed with moveable type in 1439.

    Printing, in the years since, has changed dramatically and is now one of many forms of mass communication. However, whilst there are many choices available today, print remains an intrinsic part of society, and an important communication tool for marketing and the media.

    Printed documents

    While there are many new media which have appeared in the years since the advent of print, none have the longevity or tactile qualities of print. So many are transient. There for a moment and then gone again. When something is in print it is permanent. A lasting, indelible message that has more credibility than other media.

    Putting together a printed document requires both skill in its creation and its production.

    Printing of documents, unlike so many other mass produced items, is the production of a product which is specific to the person or company it is being produced for and cannot be used by anyone else, anywhere else.

    Printed documents can come in almost any shape, size and specification. From a single page to hundreds of pages long. And print technology today means you can get items printed at almost any size. From tiny stickers, to entire building wraps.

    But, the vast majority of documents produced are smaller in size. These include: brochures, magazines, posters, leaflets, point of sale, signage, direct mail, flyers, stickers, booklets, pamphlets, packaging, training manuals, guide books, catalogues, books, invitations, folders, inserts, calendars, newsletters, interior and exterior graphics, handouts and exhibition stands.

    Design

    When producing a printed document it must first be designed and artwork put together for it to be printed from.

    The design of items is generally carried out by a designer. The designer will consider font usage, image types, page layout, colours as well as document format in order that it satisfies the requirements for the document and adheres to brand guidelines.

    A designer working on putting together page layouts for printing

    As part of their role, a designer should consider the document’s usage and therefore the paper, finishes and printing techniques required to produce the item to fulfil the requirements. For example if a document is going to be handled a lot, perhaps it needs the added protection lamination provides. Or if an item is for use outside are the inks and material weather and light proof. The early liaison with a printing company will ensure their finished item looks, feels and works as hoped once produced and printed.

    Artwork

    Once the design is complete, proofed and approved by the client, artwork will be produced to be sent to the print company for the print job to be produced from. This artwork will be saved in the appropriate file format and include all fonts, images and software files needed to print the job from. Today, the file will most often take the form of a PDF document, but could also be supplied as an Indesign file, Illustrator file or Photoshop file, all of which are part of Adobe’s Creative Suite of products.

    A full colour printed document should be saved for four colour process printing and therefore all colours and images in it saved as CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black). Monitor screens use red, green and blue (RGB) light to display images and cameras use these colours when taking images by default, therefore files should be saved from RGB to CMYK.

    If there are any spot colours – colours which are to be printed using a special ink mix or Pantone Colour – these should be indicated within the file and on any hard copy mock up supplied. Pantone colours are used when a particular colour is not accurately replicable out of four colour process. Often these will be particular corporate colours, very bright and neon colours or metallic colours (gold, silver, bronze etc.).

    Images supplied in the file should be high resolution in order that when they are printed, the images appear sharp and not fuzzy or pixelated. Using images from a website will often result in images which are not sharp. Web based images are generally saved to a resolution of 72dpi (dots per inch), where those used for print need to be at least 300dpi. Web images tend to be smaller in size and less detailed due to the need for the files to be able to be downloaded quickly to the device they are to be viewed on.

    Premedia and Prepress

    Once artwork is complete the print ready files are passed on to the prepress or premedia department for preparation and final proofing ready for printing.

    Here the artwork files will be checked to ensure images are CMYK and not RGB, and they are of a high enough resolution for sharp printing. Fonts and their inclusion will be checked, as well as bleed, crop marks and printing colour bars added.

    Trapping, knockout, imposition and origination will also be applied appropriately to the document ensuring allowances are made for the printing process, the paper type and any other finishing or other process occurring later in production.

    A final proof will also be produced as a last check to ensure everything has been received correctly and is ready to go to print. This proof could be a PDF, a digital contract proof or even a wet proof.

    Once the client has seen and approved the proof the project proceeds to production. This will mean the production of printing plates if the item is to be litho printed. If digital printing or large format printing is to be used, then no printing plates are required and the item can be sent straight to the queue of the machine the item is to be printed on.

    When litho printing in full colour, a minimum of four printing plates are required. One for each of the four process colours – cyan, magenta, yellow and black. When producing these plates each will comprise a different configuration of dots, presented at specific screen angles in order to ensure the printed image reproduces correctly and accurately.

    The plates, which are made of sheets of recyclable aluminium, are completely flat and have no relief to them (i.e. raised surfaces). These plates go on to be wrapped around the plate cylinder in the press for printing.

    Printing

    Full colour printing is actually a trick played on the brain and the eye. A full colour image is actually made up of only four colours (cyan, magenta, yellow and black). These four colours are printed in a specific dot pattern over the top of one another. Different dot sizes of each colour, half-tones, either make that colour appear stronger or lighter in appearance. When mixed with the other three process colours will make them appear as different colours to the human eye.

    Today, there are numerous different printing technologies available. These include, screen printing, pad-printing, flexography, large format, gravure, offset litho and digital printing.

    The offset litho printing process is the most prolific and is the process of choice for high quality items such as brochures, magazines, booklets and direct mail. The others such as screen printing and pad-printing are used for printing onto items like clothing and mugs, gravure for printing very long run publications like Sunday supplements and flexography to print onto items such as crisp packets.

    Digital printing is also a major player in today’s market. The quality of reproduction from these devices since their introduction around 20 years ago has come on dramatically. Today, in some instances, this means its quality can be indistinguishable from an offset litho equivalent by the untrained eye. Digital printing comes into its own when you need small run lengths of a document, quickly. They are ideal for printing on demand and also for printing totally personalised documents, like direct mail, and one offs, such as individual books.

    Offset litho uses printing plates clamped inside a printing press around a plate cylinder. The plate cylinder is flanked by a series of ink and damping (water) rollers. These rollers distribute ink and water onto the plate. The water acts as a carrier for the oily ink which adheres to the imaged areas on the plate. The plate cylinder rotates and offsets the inky image on to a rubber blanket cylinder which in turn offsets the image on to the sheet of paper fed through beneath it.

    Large format printing

    Large format printing is different from commercial printing. As its name suggests, it is generally used for the printing of larger items which either, won’t fit as they’re too big or are printed on materials which won’t pass through a commercial printing press.

    Large format printing is widely used for the production of point of sale (POS), banners and posters. Its flexibility and size, means one copy can be produced.

    The application of this method also means items can be printed onto very thick card, corrugated board or other substrates. Ingenious cutting of these materials can be used to create eye catching POS though cardboard engineering, or even useable pieces of furniture!

    Internal graphics and in store graphics (see how we helped Tesco Café in this case study) can be produced to instantly change the look and feel of a room or store, and bring it in line with a company’s brand or latest promotion. These transformations can be remarkable and hugely effective at changing the mood and feel of a room.

    Like all areas of printing, large format is full of its own jargon. POS (Point of Sale), FSDU (Free Standing Display Unit) and CAD (Computer Aided Design) are some of many daily used terms. For the less experienced it can feel a little overwhelming. An experienced business will be able to help and guide you through every step, making sure understand exactly what’s happening all the way through and that you get the product you hoped for at the end.

    Paper

    There are thousands of different types of paper available. They come a whole manner of different weights and thicknesses, colours, textures and material types. They can be recycled or metallic. Coated or uncoated. Their diversity offers unique opportunity to create documents that not only look great, but have a very special and tactile feel to them too.

    Flicking through a laser cut printed document

    When buying paper this will mean for most people buying it in ‘A’ sizes, such as A4 or A3. When buying paper for use in the printing process, it is bought in an oversized format to allow for bleed, trimming and other finishing processes required post press. Furthermore, oversized sheets are purchased to enable multiple reproductions of the same page to be printed from one sheet. These decisions are made during prepress to ensure maximum efficiency to minimise waste and cost. For ‘A’ sized finished items SRA sized papers will tend to be used, although there are others, such as ‘B’ sized papers available. The paper size purchased will be based on the best and most economical way to produce a job where waste can be kept to a minimum.

    Paper and board weight and thickness is measured in GSM (Grams per Square Metre) or Microns. Papers and cards tend to be specified in GSM and thicker boards in Microns.

    Finishing or Post-Press

    These are the processes which occur once an item has been printed. This could include folding, binding, cutting, embossing, debossing, foiling, laminating, Spot UV, laser cutting or a wide-range of other finishing activities.

    A printed product is described, when finished, as portrait (taller than it is wide) or landscape (wider than it is tall).

    How it is finished determines the number of pages the item is said to have. An A4 sheet printed on one side only is said to be an A4, 1pp (printed page), whereas if the same item was printed on both sides it would be 2pp. If that item were then folded in half it would become 4pp. There are numerous folding descriptors including gate-fold, concertina and roll folds.

    Binding is another big consideration. The type of binding used will depend on the number of pages, what the document is to be used for and the look you are after for your documents. Where page numbers are relatively small, saddle stitching is the most common binding method. Saddle stitching uses wire stitches (think staple) put through the spine at the fold. Other common methods include perfect binding and thread sewing. These methods are distinguishable by their square spines and use glue or a sewing method to secure the pages in the document.

    Special finishes add a unique look and feel to documents. Gold or silver foiling adds a sparkle and exclusivity to documents. Lamination a layer of protection or tactility to items. And debossing or embossing a satisfying and subtle raised or recessed surface.

    Finishes today include the digital application of gloss surfaces, in any design you like, to the surface of documents. This is a process we call BCQ Touch and can be totally unique and/or personalised for each document being produced. Laser cutting also allows hugely unique and fine cutting of your items to create something truly one of a kind.

    Recycling and the environment

    The environment, waste and recycling are a hugely important topics for BCQ and our business. You can see some of what we do here.

    Paper is unfairly given a bad wrap. But it really shouldn’t. It is completely recyclable and all paper is now recycled, contains recycled material or comes from a sustainable source. Our friends at Two Sides are working hard to promote the sustainability of paper.

    It is important that we all recycle everything we possibly can. At BCQ all our production and office waste is segregated and recycled.

    If you would like to know more about the printing process or have a print requirement you’d like help with, don’t hesitate to contact us. We’d love to help.

Colin Wynn
the authorColin Wynn

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