Basic definition of mailed printed matter

Print

Printed books, newspapers, pictures, etc. Although computerization and digitization in today's era have simplified or deleted part of the traditional graphic reproduction and color printing process, reduced a lot of air and noise pollution, and liberated human beings from tedious toil, graphic printing is still a A relatively complex and cumbersome task.

Nonetheless, with the electronic industrial revolution of the past decade or so, modern graphics and text printing technology has undergone earth-shaking changes to cater to the needs of the market climate, including: (1) short production cycle; ( 2) Print on demand (print as much as you need when you need it) without keeping too much inventory; (3) A larger proportion of short-run jobs (that is, small and fragmented print jobs); (4) Customers and graphic printing companies (such as Fuyunda) to cooperate more closely. Note: Thanks to the development and popularity of fashionable design and typesetting software (such as Adobe's Pagemaker typesetting software and Photoshop image processing software), today's customers are more understanding and easier to master pre-press layout design work than before. The marketing and public relations departments of many large multinational companies have staff responsible for design and layout tasks.

Most of these reforms adopt high-tech electronic and computer technology, making the process more intuitive and accessible, the production process more simplified, the production cycle greatly shortened, labor and economic costs relatively reduced, and quality control More precise, more complex printing visual and textural effects can also be achieved.

Factors affecting the effect and price of printed matter:

In addition to the production and quality control process, the factors listed below can significantly affect the production cost and final effect of any printed matter, and the customer But it is the final decision-maker of these factors:

(1) Print media material (generally refers to paper) - this is related to vision, texture and printing method;

(2) Size of printed matter---related to media material specifications (such as paper size);

(3) Content assembly requirements---simple typesetting or complex composition;

(4) Color and ink color---black and white, color, whether color separation is required. Ordinary ink, glossy ink or special printing ink such as gold, silver, fluorescent and other printing inks;

(5) Printing method---offset printing, letterpress, gravure printing, screen printing, ammonia printing , digital printing, electrostatic laser printing, inkjet printing, etc.;

(6) Binding methods---hot melt adhesive binding, saddle stitching, thread binding, hardcover, etc.;

(7 ) Quantity ----- Paper printing is usually printed in units of one thousand, and small quantities are printed in units of hundreds.

Of course, the quantity of printing required by the customer directly affects the feasibility of the other six options and whether the manufacturing cost is economical, but after all, under a certain reasonable printing quantity, the quantity will not affect the final effect of the printed matter. Too big. Let us now take a brief look at the other six elements: In the process of graphic and text printing production, the selection of printing media is a very important part. The printing effect and cost of printed products will also be affected by the printing method and the printing media used, so you should have a basic understanding of printing media.

There are many types of printing media, the most common ones are paper and cardboard, followed by cloth, fiber materials, plastic sheets (film), metal skins and the surfaces of various common electrical appliances in daily life.

The current media used in printing is mainly paper. Various types of paper have their own uses, and there are many types of paper, including "coated paper" (commonly known as "pink paper") commonly used for high-end color printing. It is chemically coated paper that is pressed by a roller and has an extremely smooth and shiny surface. , so it is also generally called "glossy coated paper".

The surface of glossy coated paper can obtain a very smooth but non-glossy effect through additional processing, which is called "matte coated paper" (commonly known as "matte pink paper"), which is suitable for fine dots. Color printing.

The classification of paper is generally divided by the following points: (1) Paper quality; (2) Weight; (3) Paper size; (4) Purpose. The names of paper are often named according to their uses; in addition to coated paper, there are also book paper, book-filling paper, newsprint, cardboard, book cover paper and special textured paper (such as British "Congo" paper), etc. The weight range depends on the application, ranging from the thinnest 45gsm (grams per square meter) onion skin paper to 300gsm thick cardboard. Generally, the weight of sheet paper commonly used for color printing is 128gsm or 157gsm, black and white printing is 80gsm to 128gsm, letter paper weight is 70gsm to 120gsm, envelope paper weight is 100gsm to 160gsm, and business card paper weight is 160gsm to 250gsm. The paper weight of printed books is usually slightly lighter than that of printed leaflets.

The choice of paper affects printing methods, inks and other post-press processing techniques, including the cost of delivering printed matter. The selection of pictures, the use of fonts, and the arrangement and combination of pictures and texts will affect the visual form, theme awareness and overall communication effect of the final printed matter.

How to choose and combine the elements of the above printed content depends on the information the client hopes to convey to the audience through the printed matter and the expected communication effect, as well as the communication art techniques provided by the designer.

There are roughly two ways to use printing ink to express the desired color: (1) Use the basic four-color ink of the printing color, mix dots and overprint to create the desired tone; (2) Mix the printing ink and use a special Color printing, using solid colors or dots to express colors. These two methods are different in printing design, color specification or plate making method. In principle, color printing uses four basic colors - yellow, magenta, cyan and black to produce ever-changing colors. Therefore, through color separation plate making and four-color overlapping restoration, color prints can faithfully reproduce the tones of color photos. However, some special colors such as gold, silver and fluorescent colors cannot be composed of overprinting of basic four-color inks and must be printed with spot-color inks.

In monochrome prints, in addition to the darkest solid and white, different dots can be used to create different shades of gray tones (halftones) to express the level of the image. The expressive power of multi-color printing is better than that of monochrome, but it must be properly used and specified to achieve the desired effect. When designing, you should find some standard color overprinting guides as a reference, and use appropriate dots to increase the color. changes.

The ink color on the printed matter can be expressed by the dot ratio of each basic color in the "four-color mixing table". However, different types of inks, media, printing methods and production equipment may print different "four-color mixing tables", so a standardized and professional method is needed to develop a set of "four-color mixing tables" or "color standards" Serves as a recognized reference standard so that everyone can accurately communicate printing ink colors through a unified color language.

The American PANTONE¤R company is an expert in formulating "color standard systems" and is a respected leader in the printing industry, providing a variety of four-color, six-color and spot-color systems printed on different media. "Color Scale" Manual. In addition to selecting the appropriate printing media (paper) and ink, the final effect of the printed matter still needs to be completed through appropriate printing methods.

There are many types of printing, with different methods, different operations, and different costs and effects. Currently used printing methods can be mainly divided into four categories: letterpress, intaglio, lithography and stencil printing: (1) letterpress printing, the printed pattern is higher than the non-printed pattern (2) gravure printing, the printed pattern is recessed in the layout (3) lithographic printing , the print has no bulges or depressions (4) Hole printing, the print in which the ink passes through the holes

Since the invention of woodcut movable type printing technology in China, printing methods have changed rapidly and are all-encompassing. The most commonly used industrial printing methods today are:

1. Offset printing (also known as offset printing)

A type of lithographic printing that can clearly reproduce with high precision The color, contrast and gradation of the original are currently the most common paper printing methods. Suitable for posters, brochures, manuals, newspapers, packaging, books, magazines, calendars and other related color printed matter.

2. Letterpress printing

A type of letterpress printing technology, generally used when there is a lot of text, few photos and pictures, a high chance of changing the text, and a small number of prints. . Suitable for small batch tasks such as printing invitation cards, business cards, labels and small packaging boxes. Traditional sequential number printing and small trademark overprinting are performed using letterpress methods.

3. Screen printing

One of the stencil printing technologies, the printing ink is particularly thick and is best for producing special effect prints. It is especially suitable if the quantity is not large and the ink color requires concentration. It can also be printed on three-dimensional surfaces, such as square boxes, boxes, round bottles, cans, etc. In addition to paper, it can also be printed cloth, plastic fabrics, plywood, film, metal sheets, glass, etc. Common new products include banners, pennants, T-shirts, corrugated cartons, soda bottles and circuit boards, etc. The flexibility of screen printing is unmatched by other printing methods.

4. Rubber printing

A type of letterpress printing, which is only suitable for printing plastic bags, labels and large and small plastic packaging. Usually the media fed into the flexographic printing press is in rolls rather than sheets, and must be cut one by one after printing. The fineness of printing dots and lines is far inferior to offset and letterpress printing, and it cannot be used to print books and publications.

5. Gravure printing

It is suitable for printing high-quality and expensive prints. Whether it is color or black and white pictures, the effect of gravure printing can be comparable to that of photography. Because the plate making cost is expensive and the printing volume must be large, it is also a less commonly used method. Suitable for printing securities, stocks, gift certificates, certificates of commercial reputation or stationery, etc.

Technology is developing rapidly, and today we can directly output on the media through computers using some of the above printing methods. The maturity of electrostatic imaging and laser technology enables on-demand printing of small batches and high quality requirements. The definition of binding is to connect printed books and periodicals in order to make them strong, beautiful, easy to read and save. Binding also includes many other processing steps for finished products after printing, such as hot stamping, embossing, die-cutting, creasing, rounding, creasing, attaching sticker bags, punching, etc.

When producing product brochures, advertising brochures, annual reports, etc., customers must consider the purpose of use, content, number of pages, paper quality, weight, size, thickness, etc.

If you have a certain understanding of binding methods, you can get twice the result with half the effort in design and arrangement.

The most common binding methods in the office include flat binding (stapler) binding, rubber ring binding, iron ring binding, (file folder) loose-leaf ring binding, slide rail (glue clip) binding and Hot melt cover binding, etc. More serious documents can be bound using hot melt adhesive strips or a duct binding method using a hardcover bookcase as the front and back covers.

Industrial binding methods that produce large quantities include saddle stitching, wireless hot-melt binding, suture (lock thread) binding and hardcover bookcase binding (such as large dictionaries, encyclopedias, etc.).

Since binding is the last process in the graphic printing process and the process that most affects the appearance of the printed product, binding methods and materials must be carefully selected, and the production quality must be strictly controlled to avoid final mistakes that will waste the results of all previous processes. The same content, but different cover production and binding methods produce different effects. Of course, if you can communicate and cooperate closely with suppliers, establish a tacit working understanding and a clear cooperative relationship, you will be more certain to obtain the expected quality of printed matter and reduce production costs. However, the following common mistakes should be avoided:

(1) The printed matter is not printed if it is not urgent;

(2) The printed manuscript is printed before it is completely completed;

(3) Always ask for the price to be as low as possible;

(4) Publish the manuscript in a sloppy manner and never send it out at once;

(5) Modify it at any time original manuscript.