Cheat Sheet: Print Terminology

Decoding Printer Terminology: A Marketer's Guide

I know you have been carefully avoiding all knowledge of this. I am here today to ruin all of your efforts by giving you a brief explanation of some of the key lingo you need for communicating with designers and printers.

No one wants to learn the technical ins and outs of the mysterious underworld of printing, and I am not here to make you an expert. If you are managing your own printing or coordinating design and print teams, familiarizing yourself with the vocabulary of print will help you operate your marketing department more effectively. Today, I will provide simple explanations of common print terms so that you will sound like a superstar while working on your next print project.

DPI

Print resolution is denoted by DPI, or dots per inch. A higher DPI translates to better reproduction.

What you most need to understand:

• You need 300. Marketing materials like brochures, posters, and packaging almost always require 300 DPI at 100%.
• Internet Images are a NO. Screen resolution is 72dpi. This means that images pulled from the internet are often too small to use for print.

CMYK Color

CMYK (also called Process and Full Color) is the primary color mode for printed materials. An acronym for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Key (Black), the four ink colors used in process printing.

What you most need to understand:

• CMYK is the color mode that you need for your print artwork
• CMYK ink allows you to print nearly the full color spectrum

Spot Ink Colors

Spot ink colors (sometimes called custom colors, matched colors, or solid inks) are specially mixed inks. Two primary color systems are PMS (Pantone Matching System) and GCMI (Glass Container Manufacturers Institute), with each system assigning a unique code to each color, mixed according to a set formula.

What you most need to understand:

• They ensure consistent color reproduction across different printers and materials.

• They allow for limited color printing with colors other than black. For instance, if you only want to print the color lavender, you could use a single spot ink color instead of a full 4-color print job.

• Pantone offers specialty inks like fluorescents and metallics.

Communicating in Print Lingo

When communicating in writing about print projects, shorthand is often used. For example, 4/4 means four ink colors are printing on the front and four on the back, denoted by the forward slash (/).

Spot colors are indicated using a plus symbol (+). For instance, the example on the left indicates a 4-color job with two additional spot colors on the front, with a single ink color printing on the back. The example on the right shows CMYK (full color, process) + two spot colors. The absence of the forward slash on the right example indicates printing on one side only.

Substrates and Stock

Substrate is a broad term for the material you are printing on, such as paper, vinyl, corrugated, or glass. Paper is often referred to as stock and can have different weights, coatings, and color indexes that differentiate thickness and quality.

Bleeds

Bleed refers to when ink is printed all the way to the edge, extending beyond where the page will be trimmed. This ensures no blank space is left where the graphics did not extend to the edge. The amount of bleed required varies from printer to printer, so your designer will need to know the specific amount of bleed required.

Trim Marks

The companion for bleeds are trim marks, which are simply guidelines for where the printer should trim the materials.

Some printers want trim marks, some do not. Every printer has a different process so it is best to get their requirements in advance so your designer can set up the artwork to their specifications.

Margins

Margins are buffer zones where content should not be placed. This term is typically used for printing that does not have bleed. It is a defined space around all sides that should have no printing at all.

Safe Zones

Printers and publications establish safe zones to guide where critical content should or should not appear. This practice ensures that critical content does not inadvertently get cropped during the trimming process. It's important to note that safe zones differ from margins in that you can print outside the safe zones; however, critical elements such as text or logos should remain within them. This practice is particularly common in print catalogs or magazines, where the bindery and trim process may occasionally result in imprecise trimming.

Registration

Registration refers to how closely aligned the layers of ink are printed. As a result of how the offset printing process works, the ink layers may not be perfectly aligned, resulting in a misaligned representation. Tolerances vary by printer and by print process. The key here is that to avoid registration issues you will see common design solutions, like small type printing in black only, so that it is one ink and no registration required.

Traps

I am only including this because this recently came up on a project. Traps are related to registration and are a buffer area to reduce noticeably off-register printing.

Traps are related to registration and serve as a buffer area to reduce the noticeability of off-register printing. Trapping typically involves adding a solid outline around small print or where two colors need precise alignment.

Normally printers will do their own trapping as part of their internal preflight process. It is rare for a designer to set up traps, since each printer is unique and has their our requirements. One of my clients was recently put on the spot about traps, so I decided to include an explanation in case they come up for you someday.

Printing Types

This is a brief overview of these most common printing methods.

Offset Printing

Commercial Offset Lithography (usually just called offset) is the most common printing method for professional materials, packaging, sales sheets, posters, etc.

What you most need to understand:

• For most printed pieces, offset printing delivers the best quality.
• With offset printing every ink color prints in a separate pass. This means if you are printing a 4-color print, single sided job, the paper will go through the printer 4 times.
• Process color ink is translucent. Like stained glass, each color prints on top of each other, building up the color. Because of this, when printing on a clear substrate material (vinyl sticker, packaging film) you will need to print a layer of solid ink first (usually white).
• It is more expensive. Because every additional ink color requires the paper to go back through the printer an additional time, printing two sides or adding spot colors adds to the cost.
• Different presses have different capabilities. Some printers can print only 4-color process, some printers can print 6, 8 or 10 colors. There are also different types of offset presses following the same principle.

Flexographic Printing

Flexographic printing (usually referred to as Flexo) is similar in process to offset lithography. The difference is primarily in the plate material used by the printer. Offset printing uses a thin, semi-metallic plate material. Flexo uses a flexible, rubber-like plate. Flexo is most commonly used in high volume printing for products like corrugated containers.

What you most need to understand:

• Flexo printing gives less print clarity than offset printing. 
• Flexo printing is cheaper by volume.
• Flexo printing is usually done in limited ink colors.

Digital Printing

Professional Digital Presses (also called Short Run Printers), use technology similar to desktop printers which allows all of the ink colors to print in a single pass. Digital printing is a budget printing method. It costs less and the quality difference is noticeable. It is one of those odd examples of new technology not improving an end product.

What you most need to understand:

• Digital Printing is cheaper than offset printing.
• Digital print quality is not as good as offset printing.
• The substrate options are more limited.

Desktop Printing

The laser or inkjet printer in your office is considered a desktop printer. A business reality is that desktop printers are often used in-house for printing sales materials, literature and other marketing pieces.

What you most need to understand:

• Desktop printers have a lower quality than offset printing.
• Desktop printers are more expensive per page.
• Desktop printers have print margins that you cannot print within.
• If you are going to use a desktop printer for output, tell your designer in advance so that can design for the limitations.

Screen Printing

Commercial Screen printing is primarily used for printing on something other than paper. You can print on paper, but there are easier ways to do this that are not so labor intensive. In Screen printing ink is then applied through a fabric screen.

What you most need to understand:

• It is a slower process. Even at a commercial level it is pretty high-touch for most items.
• You can print a wide variety of substrates and items that cannot be printed with other methods. This is the primary method of printing t-shirts, marketing items like logo imprinted pens or key chains and even glass.
• Mostly uses solid ink colors.
• It is expensive because it is time consuming.

Specialty Printer

Just a few common examples for you:

Wide Format Printers - Used by print shops to print window graphics, car wraps and other large-scale items. These are a type of digital press.

Thermography - This is the raised-style ink that you would often see on business cards back in the day to fake an embossed look. This technology has evolved and is being used to great effect for some premium printing products. Stay tuned for my upcoming post on cool premium print ideas.

Dye Sublimation - I mention this one because Dye Sublimation is a rapidly growing segment with on-demand printers. This process is unique. The ink is actually heat vaporized and applied to the substrate as a gas. This allows for a continuous tone look on a variety of items from water bottles to t-shirts.

I hope that this little summary helps you in managing your future projects. Thanks for catching up with Marketing Minded!

That’s it! See, it did not kill you.