Considered the traditional method of printing, offset lithographic printing uses a mechanical printing press. A metal plate has to be created for each ink color to indicate which areas of the paper should contain that color. That image is transferred (or offset) via a rubber roller to paper as the sheet is passed through. Paper must be passed through at least once for each ink color. So for a 4-color (CMYK) job, four plates will be created and the paper will pass through the press four times in order to end up with the finished full-color image.
Think about digital printing as your home office inkjet or laser printer on steroids (a print house’s digital printer is much more advanced!). Images are digitally transferred directly to paper using toner. There are no plates to create and paper goes through in a single pass, as opposed to multiple times.
For a small business’s marketing needs, you won’t have the time or budget to go top-of-the-line every time. And it doesn’t make sense to. Not every print job is equal, so you’ll need to determine your intended reach, intent, and message of each piece before you decide how it should be produced.
In a nutshell: use offset printing when you need a large quantity and want the best quality. For smaller runs, personalized data, or throwaway pieces that won’t have a long lifespan, go digital.
Call me old-fashioned, but I’m an offset kind of girl myself. Yet, digital printing is only going to keep getting bigger and better — and that’s exciting. In our data-driven world, marketers are now using every touchpoint to personalize experiences to individuals based on available information about them. For example, a clothing store may send you coupons for specific items based on your purchase history. As marketing continues to become more personalized, the capabilities of variable data and digital printing are going to become more and more important. So let’s see where the future leads us!
Sir Isaac Newton’s third law of physics states that every action has a reaction. But you don’t have to get beaned on the head with an apple to realize the universal laws of physics also apply to marketing.
It’s a wonderful thing to have choices. The reality, however, is that we often rely on the default instead of making conscious decisions to the contrary. This isn’t inherently a bad thing, but this tendency does affect all areas of our lives, including our business marketing.
Modern and elegant, this condensed typeface feels classy and almost timeless. And yet, as all giddiness-inducing fonts do, it has a style all its own.
