In my last post I mentioned the difference between standard printing using ‘on-line’ vendors and local printing for custom jobs.  When you do run a custom job it’s important to maximize the space on the printed page.  I’ll explain using an example.

When you send your piece to the print shop they lay it out on a large sheet of paper to be printed on the press.  Often the sheet is large enough to print 2 or more of your pieces on a single sheet.  This is called gang running.  Here’s an example of how our bulletin is printed.

You can see that our printer can fit 2 of our contemporary and one alt service bulletins on the same sheet.

It’s important to know how your printer is going to layout your piece on the sheet as many times there are gaps you can take advantage of.  You can fill these gaps with various small jobs (notepads, post cards, bookmarks, etc.)  In a sense you can get free projects out of these gaps.  You pay for just the cutting (which is nearly free).  Recently, we used these gaps to print these notepads.

It’s hard to see but the front has a small grid (like graph paper) and the back says (printed for almost free from bulletin scraps).  We had to place that message on the back as on our first run most people were concerned about how much we had paid for them.  When they found out they were very pleased.

To take this to the next level we started creating a calendar of our available space on the sheet.  This allow us to schedule the gaps.  Some weeks we print an alt bulletin and some weeks we don’t so knowing which week is which is very helpful.  Michael, our Communications Coordinator maintains this calendar.

As you can see we have a small sliver of space on the week of June 28/29 for a single pad of paper or bookmark.  Starting in July and continuing through August we have much more room.

As an example of the nature of savings you can achieve we’re printing newly designed communications cards in the slots in July and August.  This will save us over $3K (based on a quote for printing them solo) and increase the quality by letting us using 4 colors instead of the quoted B/W.

So next time you go to print be sure you coordinate with your printer to maximize the space on your sheet.  If you have a weekly print job like bulletins then you can really see cost savings by mapping out your gap printing using a calendar.

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