Frequently Asked Printing Questions

How much does it cost? Always the first question asked and always the last question that can be answered. Except for some standard items most jobs are custom. So we will have to ask some questions first and then enter the information into our quoting system before we can give you a price. Your name, email address and phone number would help so that we can contact you. Plus by putting the quote in writing it helps us when you call us a week later and want to have the job done. When will my job be ready? As soon as humanly possible if you tell us it’s a rush. However just like Orson Wells who would “sell no wine before it’s time” we won’t print any job before you approve the proof. Seriously, we will email you a proof and wait for your approval before we start the job. So if we’ve told you 2-3 days the clock doesn’t start ticking until you approve the proof. Ah, so how soon will I get a proof? Usually within a few hours but no longer than the next business day. How will I know my job is ready? You will get an email telling you that the job is ready for pickup. However, if you want to be notified some other way, say carrier pigeon, we will be happy to comply. Also, you can assume that it will be ready at COB on the promise date. Then when you get the email at 10AM saying it’s ready, you will be pleasantly surprised. Of course, if you need to pick up at a certain time please tell us that as soon as possible so that we can schedule production to accommodate you. How can I make my job cost less? Believe it or not we try to find the most cost effective way to run a job and pass that savings on to you. It will help if you tell us as much about the job as you can such as what it’s going to be used for, or if the exact size is important. Certain sizes can be run for much less just by making it a ¼” smaller for instance..  Conversely some can be run larger at no additional cost. The more information you give us the more that we can help you to save money. Seriously, I’m really cheap, can you just run it on the cheapest stock? The price of the stock is only about 10-20% of most print jobs. You aren’t really saving anything by asking for a cheaper stock and we don’t artificially markup gloss vs matte or 80# versus 100#. We prefer to print your job on the proper stock for it’s application and since we’ve been doing this for years we will be sure that it is on the proper stock. However, we can make other suggestions if we know exactly what your application is for so the more information you give us the more that we can help. Will you print on my stationary? We will sometimes but it is not a good idea and in the end your total cost is going to be more.  There are a lot of reasons that we don’t want to print on your stationary. For one there is waste associated with setting up a job so some of your overpriced stationary is going to be wasted. Plus if we have any problems then we can’t reprint because your supply is finite. Also it’s just more expensive to print. We can run a job with multiple ups if we print on our large stock which means less time for us and less cost to you. Trust us, everything will go a lot smoother if you pick a stock from us and we have thousands of stocks to choose from. I only have a rough idea of how I want my brochure to look. Do I need to hire a graphic designer to design it? Please don’t. We have a full time graphic designer on staff and on most print jobs there is no charge for her services. Also many times we see that outside designers are not familiar with print and there ends up being a lot of unnecessary back and forth.  All we need is an idea, whether it’s scratched out on the back of an envelope or in your head and we can take it from there. Can you help with my website and social media? Yes we can. Give us a call and our social media guru will be happy to discuss all your options. What the heck is a “print ready” file? The CSR asked if my file was “print ready”. I can print it, doesn’t that make it “print ready”? Not necessarily as it will depend on if your job has bleeds, is appropriately sized, has the proper resolution or is even in a format that we can open.  Just send us the file and we will figure it out. What’s a bleed? It sounds gruesome. A bleed is just an image that runs to the edge. So, for instance, if you have a 5”x7”postcard in mind that bleeds then the image we will need should  be an 1/8^th inch bigger on each side. The reason is that we print on larger sheets and then cut through that bleed so that there is no white edge that may show. We can add the bleed depending on your file. Again send us the file and we will tell you if we can adjust it.