For laughs about printing and paper, you can’t go past The Office (UK) tv series, set in the fictional Wernham Hogg Paper Company. Ricky Gervais plays David Brent, a disgusting, self-obsessed lazy character more interested in impressing his staff with so-called funny jokes and uninspiring words of wisdom than he is in advancing the paper company.

The commercial printing industry has always relied on technology to get the job done, and now thanks to the evolution of the technology, many print houses can offer services at lower prices. New internet communication technologies and the creation of digital plates makes specialized printing that wasn’t even offered a decade ago affordable for many more business owners, big or small.

Digital plates are really the main catalyst in this price decrease. Instead of having to create a set of four physical plates for CMYK projects, the image is sent digitally to the printing machine. Doing this saves money and time by allowing the image to be changed multiple times, without having to create a new set of plates.

Another key component in more affordable commercial printing is the use of internet communications in the creative and sales processes. Today many clients can upload their image or design, right onto the print house’s website making it much easier for both parties involved. Because the internet is available, the number of 24/7 orders have skyrocketed for many print houses, bringing them in bigger profits and allowing many to offer their services at more affordable prices.

Think about all of the commercial printing materials you come across in a single day. The direct mailers, the billboards, company brochures, business cards and so forth, all of the paper sizes, paper thickness, the colors and the creative marketing materials. Now, think about how these items become reality? How they evolve from a idea, to an design to a final printout.

Commercial printing is the process of taking art work and transferring that work onto a piece of paper or card stock. Many companies use a form of offset printing to transfer four sets of color, being cyan, magenta, yellow and black or otherwise known as CMYK.

The process is somewhat simple and hasn’t really changes in over a 100 years. An aluminum plate is created from the art work, each representing one color out of the CMYK process. The plate is wrapped around a plate cylinder that allows ink to fill up the cut out shape of the aluminum plate. Ink is poured into the cutout and it is transferred to a rubber roller called the blanket cylinder. The blanket cylinder is what is used to allow the paper to roll within to retrieve the right level of ink. Finally, the impression cylinder is the roller that pushes paper along at 10,000 sheets per hour to absorb the right level of ink. There are four presses, each for the individual colors. The paper moves along each press, retrieving one color at a time and finally ends up in an area of inferred heat to dry the paper for printing on the back side.

Commercial printing includes the right level of water and ink. The aluminum plate allows the paper to absorb the right level of ink and the rollers presses the image onto the paper, one at a time.

Commercial printing has many advantages that create professional and outstanding final products for many people to enjoy. There are many companies practicing this form of professional printing. The key is to ask the right questions and understand the printing process as CMYK Offset printing techniques are the best method for printing amazing marketing materials.