How to Find the Best Detroit Printing Company
Whether you’re in Detroit, Southfield, Dearborn Heights, Royal Oak or Taylor, finding the best Detroit printing company starts with understanding your business needs. Do you need web press printing? Business cards? Large format creative?
Your printing needs will likely determine, at least in part, who you would consider to be the best Detroit printing company.
What capabilities to look for
Working with the right Detroit print vendor means they can solve what you need now, plus grow and change with your needs. Here are a few things you should consider.
Offset Printing
First, the best Detroit printing company should start with the basics, like offset printing.
Offset printing, a common printing technique, means an inked image gets transferred (or “offset”) from a plate to a rubber blanket, then to the printing surface. Your printer can use offset in combination with the lithographic process. That’s based on the repulsion of oil and water. Then the offset technique employs a flat image carrier. The image to be printed obtains ink from ink rollers, while the non-printing area attracts a water-based film (called “fountain solution”), keeping the non-printing areas ink-free.
Digital Printing & Print on Demand (POD)
Another service to look for, print-on-demand (POD), is a printing technology and business process in which all kinds of documents are not printed until the printer receives your order. This allows for prints of singular or small quantities and avoids large printing quantities.
While other industries established the build to order business model, “print-on-demand” could only develop after the beginning of digital printing, because it was not economical to print single copies using traditional printing technology such as letterpress and offset printing.
A quality Detroit printer should offer this option so you can decide how you want to print your collateral like sales force material, marketing assets, technical publications and more.
Web Printing
Web offset or web printing is a form of offset printing where a continuous roll of paper is fed through the printing press. Pages are separated and cut to size after they have been printed. Web printing is used for high-volume publications such as technical publications, user manuals, magazines, newspapers, catalogs and brochures.
Large Format Printing
From eye-popping, in-store signage and POS displays, to photorealistic banners and floor graphics, large format printing and cutting needs cover the gamut for most businesses.
Typical offset print sheets of 56” wide with corresponding 60” die-cutting could take your signage and display into a new era for your business. Plus, large and grand format digital presses in the right commercial printer should deliver uncompromising versatility including the ability to print on demand, on roll-to-roll and rigid substrates.
Flexographic Printing
Does the printer you’re considering offer unique flexographic applications including barcode and serialized labels, tags and coupons? Presses should come equipped with color-reading and registration controlling devices as well as video-monitoring and barcode reading equipment to ensure your variable items are in the proper registration and sequence.
What else should I look for in the best Detroit printing company?
In addition to the capabilities you need, here are a few other things to consider.
Quality
At times, we don’t care all that much about quality. Take entertainment as an example. While we love our blockbuster movies and our favorite TV shows, we’re also used to a certain lack of quality in YouTube videos. While we’re used to it, we still gravitate toward quality.
There’s a parallel when it comes to commercial printing. Maybe you’ve become accustomed to a certain level of quality simply because you’re printing black and white manuals on newsprint-quality paper and it works.
Even in this situation, you’ll want to ensure a quality standard so that your end users can read the material and it will last the life of your product.
Beyond “what works good enough,” you may want to find a partner in whose commercial printing options include the level of quality you need for your business.
Logistics
Commercial printing options in Detroit for you will likely include partners who can deliver what you need when you need it. They should be experts in logistics to meet your business needs.
These printing partners may be in your immediate area, and able to join your milk run to save you on shipping costs. They may have their own local delivery routes to help curb costs.
The right commercial printer may also work with delivery and shipping services to ensure efficient deliveries.
However you choose your commercial printer, make sure you’re asking about delivery logistics.
Expertise
The right equipment run by the right people… that should be your goal here.
Make sure you understand the kind of printing you need, the equipment that will produce your desired outcome, and who has that equipment.
For instance, if you’re producing printed material that needs full-bleed images, you’ll work with a vendor who has the trimming equipment and the humans who can handle the intricacies of full-bleed material.
Another example you could consider: major printing needs like technical publications for your manufacturing business. These booklets, documents and books may need to run on a web press printer mentioned earlier.
Be sure to research the solutions you need, and find the right partner who can handle it with the right equipment and the right humans.
Track Record
Do you know who your potential commercial printing partner has worked with in the past or even currently?
Understanding your potential vendor through their client list can help you find the best printing options in Detroit. If you see similar businesses in their client list, they can likely help you in the same way.
Detroit cityscape photo by Morgan Somers on Unsplash
