Most of the times we overpaid for printing jobs.

This post is about how to choose one or another technology.

Traditional printing is used since the beginnings for reproduction at large scale of books, mostly religious at the very beginning. As traditional please read direct and offset prints.

This means industrial pieces like books, manuals, magazines, etc. made for massive reproduction.

Think on mugs for instance. Mugs are made at large scale. But if you want a mug for only one family, let’s say for Xmas gifts. Then you have to do it differently.

There is when digital is useful.

Digital can create at a very affordable cost not only one printing piece like a poster, can create also 50 business cards for an special event, like a wedding invitation.

Let’s put it like that: if you need less than 1000 business cards, you should choose digital printing technology.

Of course, this has limitations. Digital printing can’t produce special inks or finishes like foil. Yet.

You should be patient on that. Hopefully one day we can go as far as the industry standards go now, but in small quantities as digital.

Imagine 250 business cards in foil, with spot UV on a plastic frost finished at today’s digital printing cost!

Looks like the Eden of Graphic Designers but it will be possible one day.

In the meantime we keep an eye at Gutenberg’s invention and another eye on desktop publishing with their pros and cons.

Like almost everything we know so far.