Great References for Printers

And people who work with Printers!

 I've stumbled across half a million of these 'Top 10 Websites for Designers' or 'Best Websites for Illustrators' and so on. I want to focus this one more around good references and foundries for Printers like us [and possibly people working with printers].

Working in a print shop we receive hundreds upon hundreds of files that have outlined text, which is no longer editable, and as much as I hate admitting this... we don't know EVERY SINGLE typeface out there. [If you know someone who does, give me their name because I want to shake their hand.] Normally this is great for printing, but when we are asked to change text that is no longer editable we set out on a mission to find the correct typeface... but it's not as easy as it sounds. There are a couple simple ways to find the name of that mysterious typeface.

www.whatthefont.com
'Whatthefont is a fast way to find a typeface. All you need is a sample of the typeface you are trying to find, and by using the different attributes of that sample it tries to give you multiple options of what it could be. The downfall, though, is it's not always accurate. It's fast!... but not always accurate. Because this website is more automated I've gotten some pretty outlandish suggestions from this site. Whatthefont might not hold every single typeface out there, but when you're in a hurry this is a good website to try out.'
www.typophile.com
'As opposed to whatthefont, this website is member run and therefore more accurate. BUT... it takes a little longer to get a response. Again, all you need is a sample of the typeface you are trying to find, submit it and the members of the website will give you suggestions. In my experience with this website, all the people on typophile are just a huge group of type gurus who love type and love talking about type and love to help each other with type. How can you go wrong? [We've used it here at the shop and we've gotten a response in 19 minutes... not too bad, huh?] If you have some extra time I definitely suggest giving typophile a try.'
www.identifont.com
'This type search is a little different than typophile and whatthefont. When the typeface you're looking for it right on the tip of you tongue or you know what it looks like but you just can't think of the name, this is a good website to use. It let you search by part of the name, by other typefaces that sort of look like it, or even by the pictures that the typeface holds (like Wing Dings).'

Along with the millions of type foundry websites, there are also a million of stock photo websites! There are, however, a few that serve a specific purpose and a few that are *cough* better than all the other ones *cough*.

www.istockphoto.com
'I've never personally been a big stockphoto person, but when the occasion calls for it this is one of my favorite stock photo sites. They have photography, illustrations, audio clips, and videos.'
www.bigstock.com
'Bigstock is another one that we use frequently here, and like istockphoto it doesn't require a subscription, you can pay as you go.'
www.gettyimages.com
'Gettyimages is another good stockphoto resource. The nifty thing about getty images is they also hold royalty-free photos [forget Google searches, getty is where it's at]. Along with the royalty-free, they also have thousands of photography, audio and video clips to choose from.'
www.shutterstock.com
'Shutterstock is another good stock photo site. They have photography, vector illustrations and web, sd, and hd videos. This is a good option if you are an avid stock photo downloader. Unlike istockphoto, which has each image at a certain price, shutterstock lets you pay a certain amount a month to download 25 images a day. In the end you could save a lot of money, if you have hundreds of images that you need to download.'
www.livesurface.com
'Livesurface is a image template library with anything from blank signs, to bottles of all kinds, to shirts, to cars, to boxes, and more. When I was putting together my portfolio for school I found this website extremely helpful, especially since I didn't have to actually go out and take the pictures myself. If you have the design just buy an image, slap the design on and you're done! [Not to mention, they also have a couple tutorials.]'
www.nasa.gov
'I'm going to throw this one in here because I think it's awesome. I've never used it, but when I get the chance I won't hesitate for a second. Nasa has all kinds of space photos available to use for the public, as long as they don't have a person's face in them (which shouldn't be TOO much of a problem since, well... they're pictures of space). We've even seen images here show up in Apple Ads!'
www.bigshotstock.com
'Unlike most of the other stock photo sites, you can find an image on this site and the transactions are between you and the photography. This site holds photos of celebrities, people in business, arts, sports, education, science, technology and more.'
www.veer.com
'Veer has tons of stock photos and illustrations as well as a lot of beautiful typefaces to buy. Like shutterstock you can get a subscription for when you anticipate high volume image downloading, or you can download them individually.'
www.youworkforthem.com
'This is personally one of my favorites when it comes to designing. Youworkforthem has photography, vector art, fonts, brushes, and videos. The only fall back is that this isn't necessarily the place you would come to for stock photos of airplanes, business peoples and cute puppy dogs. Their photos are more artistic in the aspect of perhaps using them as a texture or a background for your computer, not necessarily something you would use in a brochure for a dentist's office . However, they have a sister company where they hold all of their other stock photos that are not available on youworkforthem.'
www.nanamee.com
'The sister company of youworkforthem.com. THIS is where they hold all their stock photos. It is kind of similar to the artistic look of youworkforthem's stock photos, but there are more options. Instead of just holding abstract photos, there are vintage photos, nature, places, outdoors, photography, etc. I personally love the photos they have on here, but (again) a lot of them are not necessarily photos you would choose for dentist office collateral materials.'

But I know sometimes when I'm designing instead of having designers block, I get color block, where I can't for the life of me figure out a color scheme. There are a couple helpful sites that I fall back on when I just can't seem to make up my mind.

www.colourlovers.com
'Colourlovers is a good website to go to for a little color inspiration. You can search through different catagories of color, even go so far as to purchase shirts, personalized color swatch cards, art prints, and a Color Schemer program for you computer.'
www.kuler.adobe.com
'Kuler lets you search for color schemes by theme, most popular, highest rated, newest, what have you. I personally love kuler, not just because it's extremely useful, but countless times I have lost track of time playing with their color creator.'

Here are a couple extra ones just for the fun of it.

www.neenahpaper.com
'Neenahpaper (which is a popular paper distributor) offers different kinds of resources for designers, printers, consumers and distributor. Not only is it a good resources for... well... resources, but it also offers templates and even a glossary of terms (which is extremely helpful especially if you are working directly with a printer or designer).'
Think Ink: Color Unleashed
Think Ink is actually an app that Neenah Paper, Inc put out a couple years ago. It is similar to colourlovers and kuler where you can make different color pallets, but it also uses the scientifically validated Dewey Color System to explore the psychological meaning of hundreds of color combinations.
 www.cupcakeipsum.com
You can probably guess what this one is. It's a generator that sweetens up your Lorem Ipsum! If you ever need some place holder text, try out Cupcake Ipsum and see if anybody notices.

I know there are many useful type foundries, design inspiration sites, etc, but I wanted to focus more on types of reference/foundry sites we use here at MMP. We find each of these useful in their own personal way and hopefully you will, too.

Color Theory & Color Profiles

RGB & CMYK

This post is going to be similar to the previous post 'Pantones vs Process Colors' in the functionality of process colors (CMYK) for print. But instead of comparing Pantones and Process Colors, I'm going to get a little into color fundamentals as well as cover the different RGB & CMYK Color Profiles. You might have noticed at some point that when you print something out it looks different on paper than it does on your computer screen. This is because of the different media color profiles.

RGB (Red Green & Blue) are Additive Colors, meaning when a red light, a green light, and a blue light are added together it makes white light. This is strictly for digital (web). Kind of strange since we're used to red and blue making purple and green and red making brown, right? Well, the computer screen you are looking at right now is actually made up of tiny red, green, and blue lights. The white areas are where each of the lights are turned on, the black area is where they are turned off, and all the colors in between are the lights with varying ons, offs, and intensities. If you get out a magnifying glass or a loupe and look at your computer screen you can actually see the tiny rectangular lights.

CMYK (Cyan Magenta Yellow & Black) are Subtractive Colors, meaning when you take all the colors away you have your white paper. This is (if you recall) strictly for printing. When you add all the colors together you get black, when you take them away you get white (or the color of your paper), and all the colors in between are different combinations of CMYK. [Remember: There is no white ink. White is just the color of the paper that the image is printed on. If you are printing on ivory paper, all the white areas will appear ivory.]

The full color gamut for vision, RGB, Pantones, and CMYK.

There are a lot of different things to consider when it comes to color, because not all colors are/will be the same. All color is subjective. Our eyes technically see in RGB, and how we perceive color may be different than how your neighbor perceives color. Just like monitors: the color profile in your computer may be different than your neighbor’s, therefore the color that you see on your screen will be different than theirs. So it should be no surprise if something is a completely different shade of purple on your screen than on theirs.

An easy way to imagine how we see color is to imagine beams of light flying all around you... when the light hits an object, such as a leaf, all the colored light is soaked in but the green light bounces off, thus making the leaf appear green. Take a black car tire: the car tire soaks in all the color light and nothing bounces off, making the tire appear black. Remember, the absence of light is black (like a dark room).

We can see every visible color in the color gamut (with the exception of color blindness). The total amount of colors, i.e. all the colors possible within a given color space, is referred to as the gamut. RGB has the highest. We already know Pantone inks allow you access to colors CMYK cannot produce – as they are “outside” the CMYK gamut, whereas CMYK has the smallest gamut (the most limited range). Don’t let the RGB gamut and our visual RGB gamut confuse you: if you look at the image above, the ‘Visible Color Gamut’ is all the colors that we can see with our eyes, whereas the ‘RGB Color Gamut’ is all the colors that are visible on your computer, TV, or phone screen.

Color is also relative, especially in print. When printing on white paper, yellows will come out yellow and blues will come out blue. Whereas, if you try to print on colored paper, for example: brown paper, the color of your paper will show through your ink causing the color to change. Especially if it is a dark paper! This is a big issue with digital printers. Offset press is a little different, since the ink sits on top of the paper and is a little thicker than normal ink, the paper color can still affect the ink color, but not as much as with a digital printer.

Color is also affected by coated and uncoated papers. If you recall my example about the green light bouncing off the leaf making the leaf appear green, this is almost the same concept. Except this time, the difference between coated and uncoated paper is HOW the light bounces off. The same color can be printed on both coated and uncoated, but when the light hits the coated paper the light that bouncing off will all bounce in the same direction. Whereas the light bouncing off the uncoated paper will bounce in all different directions, giving the illusion of a different shade. But in actuality, it is the same color.

Glossy paper vs Matte paper

Because RGB is strictly for web and CMYK is strictly for print, there are a couple ways to set up your files with the correct color profiles. Otherwise, if you design in RGB and change it to CMYK, the colors will actually change from what they were originally. So to make sure that this doesn’t happen, it’s always a good idea to double check and make sure that your color profile is correct for the media you are designing for.

You might recall this if you read the ‘Image Resolution’ post, but in the New Document window it gives you the option to change your document profile. If you click the drop down you can choose to design for print, web, mobile and devices, and so on. Obviously if you select Print it will set up your profile for CMYK at 300dpi, and if you select web it will set your profile up for RGB at 72dpi. You also have the option to manually change your setting under Advanced at the bottom. The window will expand a little and it gives you the option to manually change your color mode, raster effects and preview mode.

In Photoshop’s New Document window, it is a little different. If you click on the drop down for Color Mode you can select which color mode you want to work in, and then you need to change your resolution for your image [72dpi for web and 300dpi for print]. Unlike Illustrator, though, you have to set up your color mode and resolution manually.

*Fun Fact: There are more shades of GREEN than any other color,
and YELLOW rooms actually make babies cry more than any other color.*

Digital Printers vs DI Press

Digital vs Offset

Digital Printers, much like the one you probably have at home, uses strictly CMYK as their printing colors. A lot of people who need prints quickly or have a tight budget often go with the digital printer because it is faster and cheaper than the offset press. There are a few different kinds of digital printers that use different kinds of 'inks', both of which are CMYK. The two main kinds of printers are Laser Printers and Inkjet Printers.

A 'Laser Printer' uses a toner which is in powder form. As the paper goes through the printer, the toner is attracted to a photoreceptor by a charge from a laser, and the toner is transferred onto paper. The paper is then sent through a Fuser which melts the toner and fuses it (hence the name 'Fuser') to the paper. Toner is a little different than then ink that the offset press and inkjet printers use... the toner actually sits on top of the paper, whereas the ink for the offset and inkjet are liquid so the paper soaks them in.

An example of how a digital printer works.
[Photo credit: http://superiorptg.com/process/digitalpress/]

Another type of printer is an 'Inkjet Printer', which uses liquid ink. As opposed to using charges and fusers, the inkjet sprays/drops the ink onto the paper in tiny dots, and instead of heating it the ink soaks into the paper and dries by itself.

There are a few downfalls of printing with a digital printer, though. For starters, color consistency can be a problem from job to job. Colors can stay consistent while printing a single job, but having the EXACT same color a few days later is often tricky. On large areas of flat color a digital printer can often cause banding, which is caused when rollers run over the colored area leaving a slightly visible mark all the way down the paper. Also, on large areas of flat color, the color can sometimes turn out blotchy and uneven.

Offset presses use real ink and work off plates, which are a special flexible material that has an image lasered into it. Each color has its own plate, and each of those plates are wrapped around it's own roller on the press. The area that is lasered into the plate is the only area the ink will stick to.  It can be kind of hard to imagine exactly how an offset press works unless you can see it yourself, but the easiest way to explain it is there is a roller for each color ink... that roller rolls through the ink and rolls onto the plate, which transfers the ink to a 'stamp' (blanket) which stamps it onto the paper. Much like the cogs of a watch turn and work together, the rollers in a press all turn and work together.

An example of the plate, blanket, and paper as it runs through the offset press.
[Photo credit: http://www.digitalroom.com/offset-printing.html]

The DI Printer, which means Digital Imaging, is a 4-color offset press that, if you recall from the last post (Pantones vs Process Colors), can print with CMYK as well as Pantone colors. Since the DI is usually strictly 4 colors or more, a job would need either four separate pantones or use CMYK and add an extra roller for a pantone color (if the press allows for it or has room for it).

The upsides of printing with a DI is, unlike the digital printer that uses CMYK, it has excellent color consistency, especially when using Pantone colors. This is highly beneficial for branding when specific colors are called for (like Sticky Note's yellow or even Barbie's pink). Here at MMP-MarketMailPrint, the page size limit for each of our printers is 13x19 (not counting the large format printer), but the press can handle thicker paper better than the digital printer can. For example, digital printers can often have trouble with 130# paper, whereas a press can print on 130# no problem. Also, the press produces smooth solid colors, unlike the blotchyness of a digital printer.

The downfall of a DI, or any offset press, is they can be costly and they can take a little bit longer to get a job completely done. As opposed to throwing paper into the digital printer and pressing print, ... the plates have to be made, colors mixed, press needs set up, print time, and drying time. Although, fairly large jobs can actually be quicker on the offset press than on the digital printer... it all depends on the SIZE of the job. Our DI, however, uses waterless inks which mean the drying time associated with traditional offset presses can be negated.

There are, obviously, lots of details to be considered when choosing between the DI Printer and the Digital Printer, whether it be size, color, or quantity. But if your curious about the best way to go about getting your job done, all you have to do is ask!

Pantone vs Process Colors

Much like you would use the primary colors (Red, Yellow & Blue) to make colors when you're painting a picture... process colors, or CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black), are the primary printer inks that are combined to make a majority of printable colors. These colors are the universal printer ink colors, and are used world wide on all different kinds of digital printers and 4-color presses.

When a piece is printed on a digital printer using CMYK the colors aren't physically MIXED together, they are laid on the paper in tiny dots and are visually mixed to give the illusion of different colors and shades.

In order to specify a CMYK color in any Adobe Creative Suite program, locate your Tools Bar (most likely on the left side of your screen). If you do not see it, simply go to Window and select 'Tools'.

The overlapping boxes near the bottom of the Tools Bar is your selected colors. In my example, White is my fill color and black is my outline. So if I were to draw a box, the inside of the box would be white, and the outline would be black.

 

Anywho, if you double-click one of your boxes it will bring up the Color Picker. This box lets you choose the HSB, RGB, Hexidecimal Colors (the #), (all of which are mostly used for web)and your CMYK(which is obviously for print). If you know your exact CMYK color settings you can manually type them in, or you can choose a color by moving the small round color picker and it will tell you the CMYK percentage.

Pantone is a system of colors where each color is given a designated number (PMS #). PMS (Pantone Matching System) is the world-wide standard for matching colors. Although, some colors have specific names, such as Reflex Blue or Warm Red. Most Pantone colors are not made with CMYK, but are made by mixing inks using a specific formula. Because they are not made using CMYK, Pantones are used mostly on the 1 and 2 color presses. They can be used on the 4-color if you have four Pantones that are being used, but most of the time they are on the 1 and 2-color presses.

An advantage of using pantone colors is the color is consistent on every print... whereas on a digital printer, using CMYK, colors can change slightly from printer to printer, and even from job to job. This comes in handy when a company uses a very specific color throughout it's branding, like Home Depot's Orange or Coca Cola's Red. This color can stay consistent for anything from business cards, to delivery trucks, to ad campaigns.

There are two different kinds of Pantones colors, Uncoated and Coated. Uncoated is made to print well on uncoated (or matte) paper. Whereas Coated is made to print well on a coated (or glossy) paper. You won't be able to find these colors in the Color Picker, there is a special Swatch Library just for pantones. If you click on the 'Swatches' selection (most likely on the right side of your screen), it will bring up swatches that you have loaded. I, apparently, do not have any loaded, but any color I do use later will appear in this box. If your Swatches button is not there, simply go to Window and Swatches (just like when finding your Tools bar).

When you have your Swatches box open, go to the bottom left corner and click on your Swatch Library Menu, and go down and select Color Books. This will bring up all your different Pantone libraries. Most of the time you are going to stay somewhere in the box I have showing, but if the occasion calls for it you have all these other libraries to choose from. We're going to select the Pantone Process Coated library.

This is what your library looks like. Each of these boxes are a specific color with a designated number or name. When you hover over a color the name will pop up. In this case, the pink that I'm hovering over is Pantone DS 153-1 C. The C, of course, stands for Coated... whereas if it were Uncoated it would have a U. You have thousands among thousands of colors to choose from, each one made to work best for your job specifications.

You can also search for your pantone, if you know the number. Simply click on the fly-out menu on the upper right hand corner, and select Show Find Field.

Your 'Find:' field will pop up at the top of your library, and you can search away!

Just because you've designed your job with pantones, doesn't mean you can't print in CMYK. Colors can be converted before printing, just understand that when Pantones are converted, it is the CMYK "equivalent". The whole point is Pantone allows you to access colors that CMYK cannot create, such as a super-bright neon green Pantone is likely to print a bit dull, comparatively, as a CMYK print. Now why doesn't everyone just use Pantones? It's all about time and money! It's more expensive, it takes longer to set-up and print, and requires drying time. If you're in a hurry, you should probably use the digital printer with CMYK, but if you have the time and money, by all means, ...

PRINT WITH PANTONES ON THE PRESS!

Customer Stock

Customer Stock might sound familiar if you have ever bobbed around a print shop briefly. Customer Stock is material (paper, envelopes, etc) that a customer brings in to have printed on, instead of ordering through the shop. This happens a lot when someone wants to use specialty papers, if someone has a rush order and doesn't want to wait on paper delivery, or if by some odd chance it would be cheaper to bring their own paper.

The number one important thing to consider when bringing in 'customer stock' is always bring extras. It can take anywhere from 1 sheet to 25 sheets just to set up a job... especially if it's being printed on the press. So, if someone is having 500 envelopes printed the smart thing to do would be to bring in at LEAST 525 envelopes... or 550 if they wanted to play it safe!

When paper is delivered to us, or any other print shop, the boxes that the paper come in have all the specific details we need in order to send it through the printer without jamming (size, paper weight, textures, etc). But when a customer brings in a different kind of paper, a majority of the time the package doesn't give the necessary details in order to get the prints going. We pretty much play a guessing game until we get all the right settings. If the settings are wrong, the printer will inevitably jam.

This extra paper is not only for setting up the printer... it's also used for any other special requirements that may have been requested (scoring, booklets, numbering, stapling, drill holes, etc). Depending on what specifically the job entails depends on how much extra paper will be used. For example, setting up the scorer takes more extra paper than setting up for drill holes. Or a job that requires being printed on the offset presses, is scored, and stapled will obviously use more set up paper than a job printed on a digital printer and is only cut down.

Unless you are the person printing, there's really no worry in HOW MUCH extra paper is being used, just as long as there IS extra available. It's all trial and error when setting up, so it's really hard to peg an exact number of extra sheets, that's why (like earlier) we suggest to have at least 25-50 extras.