Image via WikipediaThough it’s one of the most important parts of promotion, printing can often be the first cost to be skimmed off the top when people begin to get budget-conscious. In any printing, whether it be screen printing, pad printing, or offset printing, there are several factors to consider when adding up the cost. Such factors can include but are not limited to:

• Order quantity
  • Our suppliers give us price breaks when we get certain larger quantities
  • The up-front fixed costs of doing a run become a smaller and smaller portion of the cost when larger quantities are ordered
• Location of prints. In the case of T-shirts, a 2-color front print is not the same as a 1-color front and 1 color back. In the case of posters and flyers, sometimes we can print multiple colors at a time, while other times a printer will have to let the ink dry before the next color is printed.
• Registration is a huge factor. Registration has to do with how tightly the different colors allign with one another. I’m sure we have all seen a milk or butter carton, Starbucks coffee cup, or other mass-produced packaging where it looks like somebody was “coloring out of the lines”. Simple designs often tend not to have registration problems, but when you start to add more colors and locations –especially when several colors touch one another with very thin lines– the printer often has to spend a considerably longer amount of time to set up the order. These kinds of prints can lead to a higher rejection rate, depending upon the application.
• Custom versus Standard colors are a big one. There is a universal color system called the PMS (pantone matching system) that puts a numbered code on a massive spectrum of colors. Most printers get colors like “Forest Green, Kelly Green, Lime, etc.” for their greens. When a band wants a shirt, it’s cheapest to stay with the pre-mixed colors. Companies like Target or Coca-Cola have a very specific Red color they use and they use the Pantone spectrum to assign a number to it –so that Target has “target brand red” and Coke has a “Coca-cola red”. You will find that you have to often pay mixing fees to have exact colors. For this reason, it’s usually best to stay flexible if you are not a large large brand.
• The final and most important factor is Art. I hate the cliche “garbage in-garbage out” but it really does apply. Many people try to save money by creating their own art, because it sometimes seems hard to part with $50-$100 for something which seems intangible. What you want to be careful of is that art correction fees often run equally or more than graphic designing fees. This means that if you get a cheap or free design that needs 2-3 hours of correction, you’ve actually lost money on everything and you may end up with an expensive design that is not necessarily up to par with what a graphic designer could have done.

The best advice is that if you are unsure or unexperienced with the design and printing process and you want to keep it budget-friendly, it’s best if you talk to your printer before you embark on your design, color, or quantity decisions. This is the best way to get the best final product within your budget.