About the Author: Don Weston Started working in the printing industry over 50 years ago and remains the mentor of the owner of Weston Graphics, Inc. Online Printing Services available. In my early selling days, I would walk into a major corporation’s purchasing department and see ten to twenty printers waiting for appointments. It didn’t […]

Los Angeles Graphic Design way back in the day before computers and desktop publishing. Here is a peek into the past. At this point in time, if I were a betting person, I would have bet there would be an invention that replaced the setting of type, one letter at a time. Sure enough, a […]

Commercial Printing Los Angeles Color Photographs: Now that you are acquainted with how B & W photos are prepared for the press, you are ready for a giant leap to 4-color process. Basically the process is the same with a couple of important additions. Colors used are Cyan—Magenta—Yellow and K for black; CMYK. Each color […]

Typesetting & Graphic Design Los Angeles In the very beginning type was carved by hand in wood, however, we are not going that far back here. We will start at setting the type by hand, picking the letters out of a typesetter’s wooden type box. This box contained type in individual metal type faces. Typesetters […]

Screen Tints:  Let us assume that your art layout requires an area of a color lighter than that of your type copy. You have at least two options. One would be to add another color but the cost might be prohibitive. The other would be a screen tint of the same color as type copy […]

Ever wonder what the term “butt” means? No, No…not the thing you are sitting on! “Butt” in terms of printing you fool! Check out our on-going series by Weston SR., Don is an old school printer and will be teaching us the basics of printing from A to Z. Here is A to B:   […]

Printing ink The inks used on printing presses are nothing like the inks you might use in your desk-top printer. They are custom tailored to the type of paper being used as well as the equipment doing the printing, how many colors will be used, the drying time needed, whether the printed piece includes photographs […]

Types of Paper Paper: There are several types of printing paper stock: Bond, Book, Text, and Cover. Additionally, most categories can be coated or uncoated. Let’s take them one at a time. Bond Paper: These are the sulphite bond papers most used now in desk top printers where longevity is not generally a concern. Rag […]

It is time now to bring the printing plate and the printing press together. There is another printing method which goes way back. It is called Letterpress. It is still used today, usually in smaller shops. It uses movable type, a process in which type is set in slugs by machine or set by hand, […]

PRINTING 101/PART 2 If you did not read part one…read it Fast forward ahead to “modern” lithography. It is now sometimes called, Photolithography and sometimes referred to as Offset Printing, which we will clarify later. It has evolved to a process whereby the typesetting and/or artwork (called copy) is supplied to the printer, Camera Ready, […]