The Hidden Mystery Behind Printing Brochures

Printing brochures is a little different from a normal printing task. This is even more exaggerated with bulk brochure printing. You see with printing for trade companies the brochure companies and other printing groups heavily optimize their process to do exactly what it needs too. This allows for great efficiency and cost savings, but little in the way of flexibility. It would be difficult to suddenly change a printing press design to press sheets and suddenly press out brochures instead.

Mass brochure printing

Brochure companies have to modify the printing process for bulk brochure printing. There are several aspects of mass producing brochures that are different from regular print. First, brochures are in color, so they have to use color printing press by default. Next, brochures are usually printed out at different sizes than standard paper, so the presses themselves have to be designed to handle different paper types and sizes. Third, brochures are printed on both sides at once. This means either running the brochures through a second time for the other side, or a press that can print to both sides at once. Finally, they will need a means of quickly and reliably folding the brochure into place.

Of course, there are a lot of similarities with normal printing. A lot of the process is similar to sheet printing. That is when a large roll of paper is fed through the printing press and then cut to the right sizes. This usually includes printing on both sides of the paper at once. The biggest difference many modern printer shops have to account for with printing is the folding stage. This can be done very fast with specialized machines.

Trade company printing

Printing for trade companies also requires that they handle the process from start to finish. They will receive the designs that are send over. They make a test print, or a small batch, called a proof that can be sent over to the client. This allows the client to okay the final product before any mistakes can be made on the final finished product. Doing so will prevent both sides from fighting over a product neither wanted. Now, they must also handle the issues of folding the brochures, packing them up, and sometimes even mailing them out. This requires a specialized process for each stage, as well as warehouse space to store everything as its being processed.

When a company wants to have a brochure made they must first design the brochure. This is usually done on a computer with software that has templates for brochure layouts and folds. There are several different brochure designs, some of them require special manufacturing additions to make. After the design is made it is sent to the printing company. They will check the design to make sure it is workable, then send a proof back to the client. Sometimes the proof is merely a digital image of the final product. After the client makes changes and approves the design, they print off and fold up the brochures. This batch is usually mailed to the client.