What Are the Different Types of Commercial Printing

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Printing is essential in your business as you can print brochures, booklets, and promotional items, increasing your brand's awareness. Through custom printing, you can communicate your brand's authenticity. Since business printing entails printing large quantities of products, you require reliable printing methods. These are the various business printing techniques to consider.

Offset Lithography

In offset printing, the plate has an image with the content intended for printing placed. After putting ink on the printing plate, only the image absorbs the ink. Then, printing experts shift or offset the image from the printing plate to the flat printing surface such as plastic, cardboard or paper.

Offset lithography allows you to feed rolls of paper to four printing units making this technique suitable for producing high volume commercial work. The two lithography printing techniques are:

  • Sheet-fed. During printing, the professionals cut the printing paper and place it in the printer.
  • Web press. The professionals put rolls of paper into the printer and cut the rolls once printing finishes.

Lithography printing can produce different print-outs like brochures, newspapers and posters. However, changing the printing layout once you set the layout on the printing plates can be difficult. Hence, you may not easily correct mistakes in the layout or content.

Digital Printing

Digital printing is popular as you can produce high-quality prints within a short time. This process also eliminates plate preparation and the tedious printer setup process, which helps to save labor and time. Additionally, digital printing is eco-friendly since there's no absorption of the ink and toner by the paper. Instead, the ink remains on the surface resulting in less paper and chemical waste.

There are two leading digital printing technologies:

  • Inkjet. Inkjet printing is ideal for signs, posters and short printing jobs for books.
  • Xerographic or laser printing. Ideal for documents and direct mail.

Overall, digital printing is fast, affordable and efficient and is an ideal choice for short printing runs.

Flexography

Flexography utilizes versatile relief plates attached to a printing cylinder. The method utilizes thick and buttery inks, which dry up quickly, similar to letterpress inks.  Additionally, flexography can print on uneven surfaces. Due to this versatility, flexography is an excellent choice for different businesses for printing products, including plastic bags, wraps, and food packaging.

The common commercial printing techniques include offset lithography, flexography and digital printing. Consider these methods in your next business printing project for quality and speed.

For more information on Printing Services, contact a specialist in Denver, CO.

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28 September 2021

Talking About Printing Flyers

Hello, I'm Cass O'Connell. In an effort to maintain a decent sized customer base, I always send out flyers to new areas around my region. I pick the areas according to the demographic description provided by my state. I have a specific range of customers I want to attract. The flyers I use are printed by a professional company that offers a wide variety of paper and ink types. The flyers are also designed by that same entity. All of the artwork used on the flyers beautifully encapsulates the purpose of my company. I would like to share my experience with using printing services for my flyer needs. I will talk about the materials, tools and techniques used to print my flyers. Thank you.