Offset Printing

I thought it might be useful and fun to blog a bit about offset printing. The printers Pixeltrip works with use offset lithography, and thermography (raised lettering). So here goes...

First, what is offset lithography:

Offset Lithography is by far the most common form of commercial printing.

The basic principle on which it works is that oil and water do not mix. A litho printing plate has non-image areas which absorb water. During printing the plate is kept wet so that the ink, which is inherently greasy, is rejected by the wet areas and adheres to the image areas...READ THE REST

And see a very cool Flash animated demonstration of what a running offset lithography machine looks like (sort of; the images on the page are all of the 'web' sort, meaning those giant, endless spools of paper like you see in all those old movies where someone yells 'stop the presses!') here.

And finally, a brief explanation of raised printing, also known as "Thermography":

The thermography process is a simple process used in conjunction with any conventional wet-ink printing press. The printed sheets or web coming off a press pass through a powder application, where the thermographic resin is applied to the wet ink. The resin is then removed from all areas, except where it adheres to the wet ink. The substrate (paper) is then heated causing the resin to melt and fuse to the ink. The substrate is then cooled, which finalises the process. The end result is a smooth raised or three-dimensional effect.

Is it just me, or is this stuff fascinating? Don't you wish you could just flip on the TV and watch a feature length documentary about this stuff? Well I do. If I can find a DVD of such a film you can be sure I'll blog about it.

Posted by Jeremy at 05:59 PM | Comments (0)

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