Pam Swanson printed a rack-card job from a file supplied by the client (above). Rack cards are 4 X 9 inches (10.16 X 22.86 cm).
Normally you gang-up two on an 8.5 X 11 inch (21.59 X 27.9 cm), and that is what the client had done. There was nothing 'wrong' with the imposition supplied, so Pam printed it. Later she discovered that the way the cards were positioned required 6 cuts to separate and trim them. Multiply that by 1,000 cards and that's a lot of cuts.
You might ask, why didn't we just use a guillotine? ...For two reasons quite different but equally important:
- We don't have a large one (but soon we will)
- We probably wouldn't have used it even if we did have one
Let me explain:
We don't normally get requests for such large quantities, so our trusty Boston® paper trimmer usually serves our needs. But that doesn't matter considering that I wouldn't have trusted a guillotine to make the thin trims required for this job.
It takes a really fine guillotine to trim 1/16th of an inch. When you make very thin slices with a guillotine the blade will make an uneven diagonal cut through the pile, or even 'shred' some edges, if it isn't razor sharp. Even using a paper trimmer you have to be careful making thin slices, as I am sure you are well aware.
Pam was thus stuck with an 6,000-cut project. The plus side of that is that she will never make that mistake again. In the future she will triple check impositions before printing anything ganged-up.
Another plus is that she managed to find moments of Zen during the ordeal resulting in a poem dedicated to paper trimmers everywhere (and reprinted at the end of this blog with her permission).
Counterintuitive Impositions
Imposition is important to keep the front and back in registration during duplex printing. You don't have to be a genius to know that, eh? Still, even knowing that most people inadvertently imposition in a way that creates more labor than necessary down the line. They do so because imposition is counter-intuitive. How so?
Most people place the gang-up in the center of the sheet, stacked. That makes visual sense... it looks balanced. Anyway, that's most people's placement choice. They also leave some space between the two cards ...they are separate cards, right?There's nothing 'wrong' with such a layout, except that it requires the most number of cuts -- six -- to separate and trim the two cards.
Eliminating the space between the two cards may save you one cut but only if the bordering areas are the same color. Then you have five cuts for this imposition layout:
The card Pam printed could have been reduced to 5 cuts if the two cards were impositioned back-to-back or belly-to-belly, as below.
The least number of cuts possible is three, as below.
This efficient imposition only works for non-bleed art. That is, the postcard picture requires a white border that is at least as wide as the non-print area around the edges of the sheet, 1/4 inch... just right for borders.
If the picture has to bleed then you are back to 5 cuts (as below) because the printer may not print 'bleed' or doesn't do a very good job of it. Either way it's inviting trouble... that is why bleed printing always costs more. It has nothing to do with the ink and everything to do with the trimming.
Getting the imposition correct for the backside is just as counterintuitive. In fact, it has made me crazy for my entire life. I usually end up doing it in what seems to be every possible combination before getting it right. That's because I was too lazy to make a 'dummy'.
I've been making dummies for more than 40 years. Burt Holmes showed me how when I was his assistant at Basford Incorporated, an industrial advertising agency in New York, in 1966.Dummies are paper miniatures of your project. They are especially useful to figure out pagination. For cards, if you sketch out the front layout on a sheet of thin 'see-thru' paper, like tracing paper, you can place it over the layout for the back and easily get the imposition right every time. Every time I am too lazy to do that I end up confused as usual.
In relation to one another, one is 'upside down and positioned on the other side of the sheet, as shown above, for duplex printing.
If you use a manual feed tray the artwork doesn't need to be turned upside down but it does need to be on the other side.
Use Trim for Mini-Cards
As it turns out, the 4:9 ratio image proportionately reduces to exactly the right size to fit in the trim zone. Those can be used for mini-cards. Of course, type will need to be edited and resized but, hey ...added value for your customers. The one shown is a combo we put together for the Peaks Lodge in Revelstoke, BC (if you are a snowmobiler, clue in to Revelstoke).
The mini-cards are used for Peaks Lodge contact info and are handy for guests to pop into their pockets.
A combo of rack and mini cards will be the October special at Vashon Island Imaging. We'll be selling packages of 100 for $44 and 500 for $111. There will be some restrictions, like non-bleed art for example. Still, great prices and good value for money.
Time is money and taking a little up front to figure out a good imposition layout can ultimately save you an enormous amount of time.
Follow these two rules:
1.) Don't be a dummy, make one
2.) Make 'upside down other side' a mantra
After a while, imposition will be an intuition.
Speaking of intuition, here is Pam's poem:
There's plenty more at www.poetpam.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment