Scalability and the New Print Shop

Update:

Well it would seem that the USA wasn’t ready for our standard paper size change, so for now we will be keeping with the standards we have been using since 1931. But we promise that we are keeping our eye on the ever changing landscape of print! We hope you all had a good April Fools Day!

Original Post:

Let’s talk about paper. All too often our clients design their flyer, poster and other marketing materials in word on a Letter sized sheet of paper, 8.5×11 inches. The problem comes when they want to print it larger, 8.5×14, 11×17 or even larger. But it just doesn’t scale. There is all kinds of white space left. And while white space can be used as a design element, that’s not the kind of white space we’re talking about.

See how when you scale it up from a 8.5×11 to 11×17 you have extra useable paper left over? This gets either left on (looks bad) or cut off (waste!).

It looks just as bad going from 11×17 down to smaller sizes.

See our problem? YOU, our customer, just want something that works, and this, frankly, doesn’t.

But this is a standard, what can you do about it?

The great thing about standards is there are so many to choose from! For example: ISO 216 Series paper sizes. Take a look see at this chart:

See how every paper size is almost exactly HALF of the previous size? A0 (Zero) is what we call the parent sheet and it has a ratio of  height/width of 1/√2 (1 : square root of 2). Every time you cut it in half the ratio of the new paper is also 1/√2 (1 : square root of 2)! (read more on the math here) The closest size to your old “standard” 8.5×11 Letter size is the A4. In fact, your copier at work, or your desk top printer can already handle the ISO A4 size, take a look for your self, here is the inside of our canon color copier, look at all the optional paper sizes:

There isn’t a HUGE difference between Letter and A4 to begin with:

Want a poster? Just scale it up to A3 or A2 or A1! Want a post card? Scale down to A5, A6, or A7! It ALWAYS fits!

So what does this mean?

For 2 years we have talked with printers and manufactures at trade shows, and have reached out to some printers in Canada and in Europe about paper sizes. We’ve talked about the challenges of a change over and found that there are many benefits to switching to the ISO standard. We talked with up and coming designers about this and consulted with several of the surrounding design colleges and found that paper size is the next ‘big design thing’ coming. The designers recognize that not having to change ratios between sizes will mean that they won’t have to continually redesign the same thing to fit every different paper size.

Recognizing that this is the direction the industry is headed we’ve then spent the last year acquiring equipment that can handle the ANSI sizes (letter, legal, tabloid) and the euro sizes for the upcoming switch. This is in keeping with the mandate to use metric sizes from the Ford administration in December 1975. It’s been 40 years coming (this December) and now is the time for action. We are on the bubble of the coming curve and we’re proud to say that we are going to be leaders in the upcoming change. Starting today we are converting all paper sizes to the ISO 216-series, or “A” sizes. Over the next week/month we’ll be updating our pricing on our website and in our catalog. As you reorder your jobs, we’ll convert each file to the closest A size and print it. We see this as a cost savings for our customers and for us, and hopefully less frustration. I hope you are as excited about this change as we are!

Join us on facebook for a conversation about how this can benefit your entire business.