Lithographic Printing

We offer an extensive range of printing services thanks to over 20 years experience of print providers, we now work with a number of trusted specialist printers both locally and internationally.

For larger quantities of premium quality printing we recommend Lithographic Printing known as ‘Litho’.  Litho is a method using a metal plate with a completely smooth surface on which oil is applied to divide the smooth surface into hydrophobic regions which accept the ink, and hydrophilic regions which reject it. The inked image is transferred from the plate to a rubber blanket and then to the paper, card or other printing surface (samples of printable surfaces can be provided on request). The word Lithography is from Greek ‘lithos’ (stone) and ‘grapho’ (to write). It was invented in 1796 originally using a limestone.

If we are designing your artwork for you then you can rest assured that it will have been created within the strict guidelines required to assure that the printed product looks as much like your proof as is realistically possible. Factors such as colour can be points of contention, if your chosen colours are very specific e.g. corporate colours, then we will provide the printer with your Pantone (a standardised colour reproduction system) or CMYK colour code for them to match to. C.M.Y.& K. are the initials of the 4 colours used in Process colour print jobs, cyan, magenta, yellow and black.

Watch out for RGB, it is never used in printing but be careful because it is used a lot for internet and you may find one or two of your images, if sourced elsewhere, could have been saved in RGB and will cause major problems if they end up going to print. The RGB colour model relates to red, green and blue lights which are added together in various ways to reproduce a broad range of colours to be displayed on screen.

If you are availing yourself of our print buying service and supplying us with the artwork, before it is Lithographically Printed, for example on one of the world renowned Heidelberg Printing Presses, we will submit it to a thorough pre-press procedure. This is the process whereby we check all the minutia, the fine details and hidden aspects of the artwork to iron out any problems. If work is not professionally prepared and adequately checked in this way at the pre-press stage, problems can cause hundreds, thousands or tens of thousand of pounds/euros worth of work to be ruined. Simple little mistakes like the wrong page size can cause your product to have design elements chopped off, look off-centre or end up with undesired white spaces at the edges. To make sure this doesn’t happen we will make sure your artwork is the correct size, has the appropriate cut marks, bleed and quiet zone around the edges as well as making sure all creases, folds or perforations will lie where you need them.

With any job that has specific finishing requirements, for example a folder, we will create a mock up to make sure that the artwork will give you the correct size and shape that you require. Things such as glue tabs, peep hole’s, pockets and disk holders need to be millimetre perfect or the result could be off centre or overlapped.

The text in your artwork is composed of Fonts, they need careful selection at the design stage and just as careful handling at the pre-press stage. Where this is not done professionally, more often than not fonts are missing, clashing or corrupt even though they looked perfect on the proof! During the pre-press process, unless the artwork supplied has been ‘flattened’, all fonts will be checked and converted to outlines to make sure that there is no chance of it defaulting and causing unsightly Courier fonts to pop in uninvited!

When printing 1 poster or 10,000 business cards all these and many more factors are vital, we will help you at any stage or from start to finish to make sure your ideas evolve into the professional result that takes you head and shoulders above the rest.