We are living in the digital age, which no doubt provides many advantages when it comes to making your message known and elevating your brand above your competitors. That said, digital platforms aren’t the only way to ensure your brand is visible to a large audience – print materials still have an important role to play in the marketing mix. For high volume repeat marketing materials with no compromise on quality, litho print is your ideal choice, and here are the reasons why.
Litho vs Digital Printing – Why Litho Print?
When so much revolves around digital, it’s no surprise that digital print is an increasingly popular choice for delivering a range of dynamic print marketing materials. It can be cost effective and customisable, which can certainly be beneficial, but when you are striving to make large strides in front of your competition with a dynamic and memorable brand identity, it is the superior quality of litho print that you need.
Lithographic print may date back over 200 years, but traditional techniques combined with modern technology ensure an exceptional quality of print. Whilst commercial digital printing works in the same way as an office printer, albeit on a larger, higher quality scale, litho print is an offset printing method where an image is etched onto printing plates. These plates are then covered with wet ink to transfer the image to the chosen substrate.
Whilst this print method requires printing plates to be prepared, following the initial setup, for an established brand preparing for future large scale print marketing campaigns, the benefits of litho vs digital printing cannot be ignored for repeat print materials including brochures, catalogues, magazines, posters, stationery, luxury product packaging and more.
Versatility
To stand out in a saturated market, you have to be creative with the way you present your message, down to your choice of print marketing materials. Litho gives you plenty of options.
One of the most important benefits of litho printing is just how versatile this method is. Firstly, when compared with digital printing, the variety of substrates that can be printed with the litho process is much larger. Whilst digital printing is best suited to paper materials, lithographic print is perfect for paper of all thicknesses and finishes, including glossy and textured paper and card, as well as many other print surfaces, including wood, plastic and even metal.
Litho print can also be used for a larger range of sheet sizes compared with digital print, which will often limit the maximum size of material being printed. The combination of possible print surfaces and size contributes to litho print being the best choice for large print runs for many print materials, from relatively small magazines, to large scale posters.
Quantity
Whilst litho print does require more set up time as printing plates must be prepared for each item, this print technique is well suited to longer print runs, maintaining the same quality as the print quantity goes up, and the print unit cost goes down. Whilst turnaround times may be a concern, once the litho plates are created, this process is as fast as it is effective – litho printers can be as much as three times faster than digital printers.
Quality and Clarity
Digital printing is fast and convenient, but will never provide the same clarity and precision as litho. Even on the longest print runs, the clarity of images and text from litho print maintains the same incredible quality.
Print quality is not just about the clarity of the image, but also the overall finish quality. Whilst digital prints onto the top of materials, litho uses wet ink that soaks directly into the print material, resulting in a flawless, impressionless print. As well as an incredibly visual clarity, the quality of litho printed products can also be felt by touch.
It’s this attention to detail that will set your brand apart from the crowd. The highest quality print finish compels your audience and builds their confidence in you. Remember, first impressions are vital, so make sure consumers associate your brand with quality right from the get go!
Lithographic print services
For print materials of the high quality that you would always wish to be associated with, when you’re in need of large quantities of the same designs to meet growing demand and have the time and the budget, then litho print is the path to take.
Provided you’re planning ahead for seasonal campaigns, product or service launches, then the slightly longer turnaround times associated with lithographic print shouldn’t be an issue.
If you are looking for dynamic litho printing in Birmingham to take your brand visibility to the next level, visit bluechillidp.co.uk.