Updated for 2011, the desktop, standard-sized version of the Signwriters pricing guides. The same information as in the mini Sign Contractors Pricing Guide, the desktop guide includes pricing for artwork, ...
Useful to signmakers: SGIA
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The Specialty Graphic Imaging Assn.’s (SGIA) Jeff Burton and Dan Marx recently issued its 2008 Guide to Digital Imaging, an annually revised book. Jeff is SGIA’s digital resource specialist and Dan the organization’s VP of markets and technologies. The writers say the book has multiple purposes, mainly, to instruct new printmakers and provide deeper information for experienced ones. It also serves as a reference for print-machine buyers.
Skip chapter one if you’re an experienced digital printer and not a marketer. Marketers, on page 11, you’ll find three pages of useful data. For example, 81% of all (surveyed) graphic producers are primarily digital-print shops; 82.9% of their market is local; 72% are print-for-pay shops; 75.2% serve retail stores, and 48.4% primarily serve interior decorators and designers. There’s more.
Also, Chapter 1’s final three pages list end products; thus, it’s a useful, new-idea reference for both machine and print sellers. The list includes backlit signs, posters, wallpaper, fleet graphics, clock faces and, interestingly, swimwear.
In Chapter Three, “Digital File and Job Preparation,” the writers say to train your customers, so all color processes align. They sagely advise, “Customer involvement in pre-flighting, then, becomes a preventative measure rather than an imager’s error-discovery measure.” The chapter gives details on such processes.
Here’s a nitpick. Chapter 4 says raster image processors (RIPs) are, in part, the mathematical equations that describe vectors [which] “… become solid lines or shapes.” Mike Ware’s Wasatch Computer Technology website says, “In its simplest form, a RIP interprets data from your image file into a form that a printer can understand; this translated information tells your printer how to lay down the dots of each ink, to reproduce your image on the printed page.”
Truth is, a digitally printed vector line comprises halftone, grayscale or stochastic dots. A pen plotter can draw a solid line; a dot-producing, digital printer can only emulate one.
Excellent advice in Chapter 4 says you should buy a RIP that can grow with you, as you change equipment and workflows. And, on page 27, the writers commendably advise: “The truly subjective nature of color perceptions makes the color education of your client critical to your business success.”
Read and heed.
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