UP blog | wazzUP?
Here at Universal Printing, we love “Good Design.” 
Not only do we have our own talented Design professionals in-house, but we’ve been fortunate to work with a number of amazing Ad Agencies and Independent Designers from around the country. Everyone has their own style and work habits, but almost all of them have one thing in common: They always want tips, suggestions, and feedback from their Printing Partner.
Here’s a simple “fun” fact about printing: Printers CRINGE at projects with dark blue ink!
One of the advantages of being in business for over thirty years, is that we’ve seen a lot of exciting changes in the world of commercial printing and graphics communications. Computer-to-Plate (CTP) systems have made a huge impact in traditional offset printing, providing better printing plates capable of amazing image quality. Our chemistry-free plating system develops on press which adds an incredible environmental benefits as well. Technology has lead to major improvements in the areas of digital printing and copying also — using faster, more precise RIPS, and producing higher resolution output in shorter periods of time. When you add our GRACoL G7 processes into the mix, you get dynamic color which is repeatable and matches across ALL devices. Exciting stuff!
As proven experts in both Digital Printing and traditional Offset Printing, we have a great deal of experience and advice that we’re more than happy to share with our clients. First, let’s take a look at the advantages of each printing method:
It should be pretty clear to anyone who knows and does business with us, that we love what we do! Each day is different, filled with new projects and opportunities (and occasionally some “curve balls” to troubleshoot and solve.) But I can promise… it’s NEVER boring! We work on a lot of different types of projects, too. Sometimes we have an awesome graphic design project in-house or some large direct mail project, other times we’ll have complex kits to produce and assemble. It’s safe to say, that every project we work on is unique and important in its own way.
We talk a lot about “green printing” and what it means to be environmentally responsible. This is a topic that has always been important to us. Universal Printing has been a leader and innovator in aggressive environmentally responsible printing practices for over 30 years.
We love paper… LOVE it! Our slogan for the past 30 years has been “Making You Look Better On Paper, ON TIME!” It’s something we truly believe in and strive to accomplish daily. We also hope that it’s something that all printers, graphic designer, and marketing professionals all agree on: Paper ROCKS!
John Francis, Art Director for Universal Printing, has created some helpful videos of “tips and tricks” for helping you get noticed and stand out from your competition. Before setting up your files, watch some of our helpful tutorial videos like the one shown below.
The benefits: Making colors print sharper and more consistently across multiple printing devices allowing you to benefit from the best-priced print technology without compromising quality. Not as easy as it sounds, since we offer lots of different color devices and each use their own inks or toners, papers, and their own software RIPs. GRACoL 7 bridges the gap . For those techie-geeky types that want to know the in-depth explanations of GRACoL, GRACoL 7, and G7, feel free to click here.
Fortunately, we do our homework (and kept it away from the dog!) We start with quality papers from environmentally responsible sources and use eco-friendly inks and toner. Then we follow that up with regular calibration and an industry leading QA system to monitor our color. The final ingredient is skilled and knowledgeable staff, who continue to monitor color through the entire run.
Seems simple, but apparently it’s not! I guess that’s why our G7 Expert Color Consultant seemed surprised when our first test sheets, from our first test plates, were almost within specs without having changed a thing. A process that could have taken two days, took just over two hours on press.
So we proudly became one of the first printing companies in the Carolinas to qualify as G7 Master Printers. And now, one year later, we’ve gone through our first RE-qualification process and are STILL only one of seven G7 Master Printers in the Carolinas. GRACoL has made some changes in their qualification criteria and expectations are a little higher. We weren’t scared, though… hit it on our first pull. Piece of cake!