Think of all the commercial print materials you encounter in one day. Direct mail, billboards, company brochures, business cards, etc., All paper sizes, paper thickness, colors, and creative marketing materials. Now think about how these objects become reality? How they evolve from idea to design to final printout.
Commercial printing is the process of taking artwork and transferring this work to a piece of paper or a card stock. Many companies use an offset printing form to transfer four sets of colors, which are cyan, magenta, yellow and black or otherwise known as CMYK.
The process is somewhat simple and has not changed in the last 100 years. An aluminum plate is created from artwork, each of which represents one color from the CMYK process. The plate is wrapped around the plate cylinder, which allows the ink to fill in the cut form of the aluminum plate. Ink is loved in the neckline and transferred to a rubber roller called a cylinder. An empty cylinder is what is used so that the paper can roll inside to get the correct level of ink. Finally, the impression cylinder is a roller that pushes 10,000 sheets of paper per hour to absorb the correct level of ink. There are four presses, each for individual colors. The paper moves along each press, getting one color at a time, and finally ends in the infrared heating area to dry the printing paper on the reverse side.
Commercial printing includes the right level of water and ink. The aluminum plate allows the paper to absorb the right ink level, and the rollers press the image on the paper one at a time.
Commercial printing has many advantages that create professional and outstanding end products for many people. There are many companies practicing this form of professional printing. The key is to ask the right questions and understand the printing process, because CMYK Offset printing methods are the best way to print great marketing materials.
