Offset Printing – conventional printing with printing plates, ink, and a printing press. Some projects are best suited for a printing press, such as long runs, precise spot colors or registration, and larger sheet sizes, which is why we still operate our printing presses.
Digital Printing – toner based digital printing is really just a sophisticated copy machine designed for heavy use and the quality demands of a commercial printer. With the trend toward short run full color projects, we’ve invested in digital color production equipment. In fact, so much work has gone digital, some printers have sold or scrapped their printing presses and do only digital in-house.
Die Cutting – think of a “cookie-cutter” for paper. We use die cutting to product irregularly- shaped items, holes and slits. Door hangers and pocket folders are familiar die cut items.
Foil Stamping – most commonly metallic gold or silver, typically seen on greeting cards. Although gold and silver account for the majority of foil stamping, many other colors and effects are possible, including holographic patterns, textures, and other colors both metallic and solid. Foil works particularly well to decorate dark paper stock since unlike ink or toner, the foil is opaque and will completely hide the paper underneath.
Embossing – refers raising (emboss) or depressing (deboss) an image into the paper. Again, greeting cards are commonly embossed. Embossing is further categorized as single-level or sculpted. A single-level emboss, as its name implies, raises the image to one level above original paper level and is done with a copper or magnesium die. A sculpted emboss is done with a brass die and imparts a bas-relief effect to the subject. When embossing the paper only, the term is “blind emboss”. When embossing a foil stamped subject, the term is “foil emboss”.
Screen Printing – most commonly used to print t-shirts, screen printing is also used on paper and plastics. We use screen printing to print effects like pearlescents, high-gloss clears, and opaque colors. Our screen printing production is all UV-cure, the ink “dries” when exposed to uv-light. The advantage is immediate drying and no solvents.
Mailing – we are capable of producing direct mail up to a few thousand pieces. Beyond that we have a business relationship with a mailing house that can address, insert and mail on a much larger scale.
Over the years, we’ve tackled some pretty challenging projects. Screen printing polycarbonate sheets, a large, intricate foil-emboss of the Statue of Liberty (can be seen at www.LibertyNotTyranny.com), stamping a business card with fine type in 4 different foil colors, printing water-slide decals, publishing a book of accurate historic Austin-Healey colors, and other things that are challenging to produce.