Five Ways to Slash Your Printing Costs

You don't have to be a professional graphic designer to deal with printers effectively. In fact, most people that buy printing today have little or no professional design training at all. Since the advent of desktop publishing, people like marketing professionals, secretaries, teachers, administrators and management companies end up designing their company's documents instead of hiring a freelancer or facing the exorbitant costs of going to an ad agency. Entrepreneurs and small business owners also fall into this category, because they rarely have the means to have their promotional products professionally designed.

People new to buying printing often start out going to a copy shop, and end up storming out after a few botched orders. Their next choice is usually to find a local small printer who will do a better job walking them through the process and educating them on how to properly set up their files, what paper stocks to use, etc.

For the past seven years, I've been the guy unwary print buyers fear most. I manage the pre-press department and make the judgment on whether or not the file you spent endless hours creating is printable within the realm of your budget. If I say it can't be printed they way you intended, then you're facing a major obstacle. I won't pronounce your file cancerous, but I'm likely to say what could be the most expensive words you'll ever hear: we have to print this digitally or re-create it to make it press-ready.

I'm going to give you some tips that will lower your printing costs dramatically. Actually, they're not really tips, they're more like rules. But remember, they're rules that make your life easier and keep your boss happy by saving their business money.

Rule #1
Press is king. Unless you're doing a small print run, you're almost always better having your job printed on a press than instead of a color copier or similar digital output device. The first question asked when you're handed a printing quote should be: is this the least expensive way for me to print this? Your second question is: is there any way I can change my design in order to print this at a lower cost?