Four major elements of the printing process that should be considered in prepress design
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Frequently encountered such a situation, prepress designers feel very perfect works, after the delivery of printing production, there are many actual printing process problems, resulting in the production process can not continue, or increase the unnecessary processing difficulty, resulting in The cost rises. Therefore, this article starts from the actual production, summarizes the basic elements of the printing process that should be considered in the prepress design, so that prepress designers can start from these factors and pay attention to the process problems of the print design in the design process. Pre-press and printing, as well as post-press seamless docking, high quality and efficient to provide customers with quality and cheap service.
A beautiful design work is undoubtedly the crystallization of the wisdom and inspiration of the designer, but from the "design work" to the "printed product", there is a considerable distance. Because the work of a single piece is easy to implement, if the design is widely spread and needs a lot of copying, it is significant to compare the effect of the work with the printed sample. From the printing point of view, the printing process is complicated. Sex makes a print that is extravagant. At this time, we need not only the foundation of art design, but also the relevant printing process problems, and reflect the specific product design, in order to complete the perfect transformation from “work” to “product”. In real life, between the designer and the printing house, after the accident, the two sides are very unhappy because of the unclear responsibility. In fact, as long as the designers change the design of the product according to the printing process knowledge, they can print better. So, what are the printing process problems that should be paid attention to when designing products?
First, the type of printing
When designing a product, the first thing to consider is which type of printing the product will be designed for. The process characteristics of different printing types are completely different. Taking the four printing methods as an example, the offset printing performance is rich and delicate, the embossed product has a clear outline, the brush stroke is strong, the ink color is bright, the gravure printing is clear, the appearance is fine, the silk screen ink layer is thick and embossed, and the flexographic printing product is concise. Color blocks and lines create a strong visual impact. Different types of printing have their own specific design requirements and must be considered at the time of design.
For the design of offset products, designers have more contacts and relatively rich experience. Pay attention to these points: whether the resolution of the picture is sufficient; whether the trapping value is suitable; for small text, try to avoid four-color overlay, so as to avoid Add unnecessary printing difficulty; whether the rule line cutting line is complete; try to avoid designing full-size solid color blocks in large format; the direction relationship between graphics and paper fibers, fully taking into account the requirements of post-processing.
Gravure products are designed to avoid multi-color overprinting. Most of the printing materials used for gravure printing have large thermal expansion, and the thermal deformation during high-speed printing makes the printing overprinting more difficult. Therefore, when designing the pattern, try not to affect the design effect. Avoid multicolor overprinting. In addition, some materials are not only highly stretchable, but also have poor ink adhesion. Such as: the current PE film used in fresh milk products, black and white film, so designing such packaging patterns not only to avoid multi-color overprinting, but also to make the pattern simple, generous, to avoid large-area coloring. To fully consider the requirements of the bag making process, for the back sealing bag, the front pattern should be properly bleeding according to the size of the finished product, so as to prevent the front pattern from being too small after the bag is made, and it is necessary to consider whether the upper and lower sides need no seam. Whether the spot position setting meets the needs of cutting bag making, etc. In addition, whether it is necessary to connect with the transparent or the same color between the finished product patterns is also a place to be paid attention to in the design of gravure products.
In the design of flexo printing, if the original product is printed by offset or gravure, when considering the use of flexo printing, it is not possible to simply copy the previous design and blindly pursue the printing effect of offset printing and gravure printing. When designing flexo prints, the following aspects should be avoided: avoid designing too small text and too thin lines; avoid two-color or multi-color lines and text overprinting; avoid designing small anti-white characters and lines; avoiding picture highlights Broken net or 1% small dots; avoid designing text or lines in bitmap software such as photoshop; avoid designing wide and long solids and gradients along the horizontal direction of the printing cylinder; unless special requirements, avoid large areas and dots and small The text is done on the same page and so on.
In the case of screen printing, the original used is not very different from the original used in other printing methods. However, in the specific plate making and printing practice, the requirements are different. This is mainly due to the screen. The printing characteristics are determined. In particular, since the screen printing ink layer is thick and bright, it is necessary to fully consider the special effects of screen printing when selecting the original and plate making. In addition, the accuracy of the lines and dot requirements of the original used in screen printing is also different from that required for the ordinary printing method. If the lines and dots of the original are very fine, it is very difficult to use screen printing. Therefore, the screen printing technique is not suitable for reproducing originals of fine lines and dots. At the time of screen printing, it is necessary to pay attention to selecting a suitable network cable in order to achieve the purpose of sufficiently reproducing the original. Screen printing is more suitable for a monochrome set of color originals with bright text and lines. It is also suitable for color originals with large contrast and clear levels. Through the special effects of screen printing, the replica has rich expressive power, and fully expresses the texture and stereoscopic effect of the original content by enriching the contrast between the thick ink layer and the hue.
Second, the material selection
When designing the product, the packaging materials used must be consistent with the product market positioning, so as to achieve the best packaging effect at the lowest cost. When selecting materials, on the one hand, we must consider the variety of materials, on the one hand, we must consider the specifications of the materials. Different printing materials have different printability differences, even completely different, and the actual performance of the products varies widely. One of the more successful examples of the use of new materials is a bowl of instant noodle packaging from Hebei Zhongwang Group. It breaks through the design materials and draws on the design style of small food packaging. It uses transparent ink to print on the aluminized film. Its vivid color is once The listing soon became the "high-profile" focus of many similar products, providing a new way of thinking for instant noodle packaging design and achieving good sales results in the market.
The specification of the material is also an important aspect that affects the cost of the product. For example, because different brands of packaging labels require different types and specifications of paper, it is often necessary to stock dozens of different types and thicknesses of paper. Such as single-sided coated paper, single-sided offset paper, single-sided copper plate paper, coated paper, cast glass powder paper, white paper, gold paper, aluminum foil paper, leather white paper, etc., the common thickness is 80g , 90g, 250g, 300g. 350g, 400g, 450g, etc. When designing a product, consideration must be given to the specification of the material used to avoid additional costs due to improper selection of material specifications. For example, book printing papers, cover pages, inserts and linings of books and magazines, generally use 100-150g paper within 200 pages, 120-180g paper for 200 pages or more; 80-150g paper for inserts; The thickness is generally selected between 80 and 150 g. For the same type of paper, the heavier the weight, the higher the price, the weight of the text paper increases, the thickness of the spine is also thickened, and sometimes the weight and opening number of the cover paper must be adjusted, which will result in a series of ties. It often increases the cost of paper.
Third, color and resolution
When choosing a color, you need to consider the actual reproduction of the print, such as not using the color in the purple system. The reason is that the purple color obtained by superimposing the blue ink and the magenta ink in the printing ink is generally "dirty", and it is difficult to achieve the color displayed on the computer display or the color effect desired by the customer in the design of the design, which is easy to cause A quality accident related to color. If you really want to print the ideal purple color, you can either use the pink ink for the overlay or the spot color. If the designed product is in the new stage of the marketing process, it is recommended that the customer use the spot color to print the main color of the package, which can improve the packaging pattern, the brightness of the color, and reduce the color of the main color of the package. The risk of slow sales caused by non-compliance (if the main color of the product is printed with spot color, the main color of the package can be changed at any time according to market needs during the sales process).
In print-based graphic design, the resolution must be determined according to the requirements of the design and printing process, especially the printing materials used for printing (mostly paper), etc., not any picture must be adjusted to the highest resolution. rate. For example, newspapers print a lower network cable than a beautiful album, and they have different requirements for the resolution of image files. If the resolution of the picture on a newspaper printed with newsprint is adjusted to the same resolution as that of a book printed on coated paper, it is not only meaningless, but instead results in a printing paste. The resolution of different objects in the print computer graphic design is as follows: General newsprint, offset paper printed color or black and white newspaper printing network cable is 60-100 lines, design resolution is 120-200dpi; generally use offset paper, draw newspaper Color papers such as coated paper, cardboard, and whiteboard printing, such as book covers, pictorials, product advertisements, etc., printing network lines up to 150 lines, design resolution is 300dpi; high-end books, exquisite albums, high-end advertising prints, printed on high-grade coated paper The printing network cable can reach more than 175 lines, and the design resolution is 350dpi; fine treasure books or special securities, special banknotes, etc., the design resolution can be 400dpi.
Fourth, typesetting scheme
Designers must provide customers with a reasonable layout solution based on customer needs. For example, the market prospects of products designed in flexo printing are promising, and the product packaging has a large amount of printing at a time. It is recommended that the customer arrange the unit patterns vertically and increase the printing efficiency by increasing the circumference of the plate cylinder.
Pay attention to the direction of the paper when typography, such as bottled wine trademark, because it is mechanized labeling, the speed is fast, the back of the paper is automatically coated with glue and then deformed and bent instantly. The bending direction of the paper should match the automatic labeling machine, otherwise Production cannot be performed on the automatic assembly line. Therefore, in order to meet the needs of different customers, the paper horizontal and vertical silk must be considered first in the layout, in order to prevent the production of the trademark due to the customer's horizontal and vertical wire requirements, resulting in the entire batch of products scrapped.
The distinctive feature of packaging trademark printing and book printing is that one version and one picture are combined. If you have less than two maps, you can connect dozens of graphs. It is more appropriate to combine several pictures for printing. This is the problem to be considered in design and process. Mainly from the following aspects. 1 The difficulty of post-press processing. If a manuscript has more processing steps, it is necessary to carefully consider that the printing layout cannot be made very large. Otherwise, because the temperature and humidity of the printing workshop is not well controlled, it is easy to cause the paper to expand and contract, so that the hot aluminum and the embossing of the next process are very Difficult to overprint, so that it should be hot aluminum, embossing, must be hot stamped several times. In addition, there are many pieces and the paper is deformed, which will seriously affect the registration and it is difficult to remedy. 2 special-shaped trademarks. Trademark labels are generally not very large. For thin paper-shaped trademarks that need to be die-cut, do not use too much. Otherwise, the quality of die-cutting will be affected by the accuracy of die-cutting. 3 number of prints. If the number of prints is not large, don't overdo the fight. Because the layout is too large and the number of prints is small, the cost of die-cutting is high, which inevitably increases the cost of single-label. 4 paper opening number. The size of the packaging paper matches the paper size, so the printing paper is standard and there is no waste. Packaging trademarks are not the same, due to the size of the single standard, it is impossible to accurately join together to open eight, four open, off the printing. Therefore, whether to adopt the combination of inserting and splicing, horizontal and vertical splicing, splicing, slashing, and slashing, is to save printing paper as much as possible, and to choose a good process to directly create profits for the enterprise. For example, in the design of books and periodicals, if the selection of the book is unreasonable, the edge material will increase and the effective use area of the paper will decrease. Books with a short line, such as a series of poems in a row, are opened in 32. There are many blanks in the incisions and staples, and more paper is used. If you use a narrow 36-fold format, you can save paper. If the cost is too small, the number of folds and the material of the edge are also more. In order to facilitate printing, try not to use less or less irregular copies, which can reduce the printing cost.
In summary, in order to achieve a successful leap from “work” to “product”, prepress designers must thoroughly study the relevant knowledge of the printing process and select and set the parameters on the process issues discussed above. Proficiency in the application of specific products, in order to successfully achieve the requirements of industrial production of printing batches, and constantly guide and reduce production costs, create more value for customers.