Print Design
Print design with reference to web designing can be more complicated than anyone could think of. The first time you try to operate the software package especially meant for printing and the results go awry you come to know the importance of knowing it a bit in more detail.
Earlier there was only one soft ware for print design and that was Quark Xpress. It used to crash many times and most of time did not fulfill the commitment of quality prints. The licensed version of Quark Xpress was priced at over a thousand pounds. It was having monopoly just because the production side in the industry such as the printers and the repro houses used this and only this software package. Aldus Pagemaker was there as an alternative but not as a prominent competitor.
Later Indesign, labeled as ‘Quark killer ‘, was introduced by Adobe. This software package capitalized on the failings of Quark Xpress.
Nowadays the standard format of print design is PDF. For design elements one can use software packages such as Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator.
The print design depends on the printing process which in turn has to be good at quality and at the same time cost effective.
Print Design can be carried out two ways. One is Digital Printing and the other one is Offset Lithography.
Digital Printing: Digital Printing is usually ignored because of poor quality of color and finished surface. The quality of the digital printing is not as good as that of Lithography or Flexography. Digital printing is generally cheaper and has a quick turnaround. The costing in this type of printing is limited because there is no need of producing films or plates.
Moreover large format printing is possible with digital printing. The disadvantages of digital printing are not less. There are possibilities of the color recognition being poor. It can result in banding on flat color. For better quality it can prove expensive. The spot color and the full color are priced the same. The printing is limited to specific paper weights and types.
Offset Lithography: It is usually called Litho. It is the most common method of paper printing. In this type of printing both spot color and CMYK can be used. This type of printing involves many steps. Large plates are used by the printing presses to transfer the image onto the paper. The first thing that is done is the development of the plate.
For cost effectiveness maximum number of items are planned and developed on one plate. The plate has to undergo various steps of process before being used for image production on paper. In litho printing, it is from the PDF file or Indesign file that the film is produced.
For every color used there is a different plate. From the films, the proofs are produced and from the proofs the plates are produced and finally the printing starts.
