Commercial Printing: Tips Every Client Should Know

01 Dec Commercial Printing: Tips Every Client Should Know

At Bayside Printing, we often get lots of questions relating to our commercial printing services. Clients are keen to know what exactly commercial printing is, and how it differs from just printing items at home or in the office. 

In reality, there are some significant differences! There’s also a lot that you aren’t likely to know about commercial printing services. To help you understand things better, we’ve compiled a list of helpful tips that every client should know before ordering these services. 

Tip 1: Understand the different printing options

Commercial printing services are made up of many different printing options. Our advice is that you understand what the different methods are and which one is right for you. At Bayside Printing, we currently provide the following:

• Digital printing
• Offset printing

Digital printing used to be called copying, and it works by taking digital files and basically copying them onto your printing material of choice. We typically recommend this for short runs. 

Offset printing uses printing plates and ink to transfer an inked image from a plate to a rubber blanket, and then a printing surface. This provides you with the best colors and quality, and we tend to recommend it for high-volume runs as the cost per piece is very efficient. 

Tip 2: Consider what can be printed

Similarly, commercial printing encompasses many different things. When you print something from home or the office, your options are very limited. Typically, your printer can only handle paper, meaning you’re only able to print things like posters and possibly leaflets. 

With commercial printing, different printing surfaces/materials can be used to create a broader range of items. For instance, we’re capable of printing the following:

• Business cards
• Magazines
• Books
• Manuals
• Brochures
• Direct mail
• Postcards
• Newsletters
• Booklets
• Catalogs
• Flyers
• Presentation folders
• Menus
• Posters

The list goes on and on, displaying the sheer diversity of commercial printing. As such, we implore all clients to have a long think about the products they want to create before they print them. 

Tip 3: Learn about CMYK

In the printing industry, we deal with colors differently from how you would at home. When printing something from a computer, your printer views it in the RGB (red, green, blue) format. This is why you sometimes print something and the colors look slightly different from how they did on the screen. Without getting too complex, it’s simply because the RGB color spectrum is so broad that subtle changes can easily occur. 

By contrast, you will often come across the term CMYK when looking at commercial printing services. This is simply how we view the color spectrum, and it stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Key – Key actually stands for black, as it is the key color used to determine the image outcome. 

You don’t need to know the complex scientific differences between the two terms; all you need to know is that you’ll see CMYK used instead of RGB when talking about colors. Also, we use CMYK because it gives the best color outcome that’s as close to the original as possible, ensuring your prints look exactly how you want them to. 

Tip 4: High-volume prints are more cost-effective

It’s never usually recommended that you use commercial printing services for extremely low-volume prints. For example, if you only want to print ten things out, then it’s a bit of a waste to invest in commercial printing. 

Instead, we believe that clients get more bang for their buck by choosing large print count projects. We’re talking about instances where you need to bring out hundreds, possibly even thousands of things all in one go. When you order high-volume prints like this, the cost per print decreases dramatically. It leads to much better value-for-money, and you get the benefit of having plenty of prints to use as you please. 

Tip 5: Order from local businesses

There are loads of online printing companies that serve the entire country. Often, these companies provide the cheapest prices, but they come with a considerable caveat. Seeing as the companies are based online, it could take weeks for your prints to make it to you. Not only that but there’s always the worry about the print quality. 

Instead, our biggest tip is to shop locally. Use local commercial printing services to get the highest-quality prints in as little time as possible. After all, time is money in the commercial world, and you need your prints in days, not weeks!

If you’re looking to invest in commercial printing services, feel free to contact Bayside Printing today. With over 50 years of industry experience, we’ll help you find the best printing format for your project, offering competitive prices at all times.