This is not as headline grabbing as it sounds. No blue or red headscarves, no ‘bloods and crips’ set for a hollywood gang shoot out – its much less terrifying. It actually refers to how print jobs are placed together on one large sheet and ‘gang printed’ together, its also know as the ‘grid printing’ method. By printing in this way reduces the production costs dramatically, which can mean huge savings for leaflet and flyer printing.
Traditionally when you order print through a local printer then each print order is produced individually. This individual order must then take on-board the cost of the machine set-up, the print plates, the press time, the labour cost and then the wash-up at the end. But by sharing a larger sheet and ‘ganging’ or grouping jobs together this cost is spread over many orders. You could look at this like driving a private bus with only one passenger, but a commercial bus full of passengers will spread the cost between them.
There is a slight downside to ‘gang run’ printing, your order is on the press with some times up to 30 other customers all taking advantage of this cost effective method. So its possible that there maybe a very slight compromise on colour consistency, to use the bus analogy again if you are individual passenger then you should be able to tune the radio to your liking, tell the driver how fast you want to go and be driven door to door. On a commercial bus some sacrifices nee to be made in order to keep all the passengers happy. Gang run print has to absorb similar compromises.
These compromises are are in the main not even noticed as they are so slight. If colour consistency is very important to you then we suggest that your order is printed individually, so it can be individually monitored by the printer minder (person who controls the printing press), and they have full control over the colour control of your order.

Dean Williams

Dean Williams is a design and marketing blogger working for Print-Print Limited, promoting business and building brands through quality print marketing. If you’re interested in small business promotion then please get in touch hello@print-print.co.uk