Ex Why Zed has built a reputation as a leading UK full colour digital printer. Our “Can Do” attitude and large press capacity means we will aim to find a print solution to the most bespoke request or tightest deadline.
Printing your next job digitally gives you the flexibility to trial company brochures, campaigns and products before committing to a larger litho run. It is ideal for short print runs – why order thousands of copies when you only really need a few hundred?
The advantage to digital printing is there is no minimum order quanity. You want to print one copy? We’ll print you one copy. You want to print 173 copies, we can do that too. The set up costs are low so printing a handful of copies is well within your budget and super fast to arrive aswell. Win win!
The Indigo is a versatile beast and opens up many possibilities to make your project more eye-catching.
We can actually print in white ink. Yes white! This solution particularly comes into its own when you choose one of the darker shades from the GF Smith Colorplan range and then we can add content using white ink. Check out the Fine Dining book and the Gin Anthology, see left, both are printed onto Colorplan Ebony. This process works best for logos, text and vector graphics rather than intricate details. The way to prepare artwork for white ink printing makes it nigh on impossible to print photography in white ink unless you have an iron patience and legendary Photoshop skills.
The electrostatic ink tends to ‘sit’ on the paper surface more than it does with litho printing where it has a tendancy to really soak in and lose ‘punch’. So, printing onto uncoated papers is arguably more effective when printed digitally than it is litho.
We have been doing this a while now and have seen a lot of impressive publications come off our digital presses. To give you some ideas of what can be achieved, here are three creative print specifications. Each has its own characteristics which have proven to be winning combinations from a production perspective, cost per unit and most importantly, have reader appeal.
345x245mm Wire Stitched Booklets
(Front Door, shown right)
4pp Cover onto 200gsm Uncoated
Matt lamination to outer
60pp Text onto 150gsm Uncoated.
Four colour print throughout.
245x172mm Zines
(So Young, also shown right)
4pp Cover onto 200gsm Uncoated.
48pp Text onto 120gsm Uncoated.
Full colour throughout.
210x135mm Booklets
(Gin Anthology booklets, shown above)
4pp Cover onto 270gsm Colorplan Ebony Black
with Fine Linen Embossing
White print to outer
20pp Text onto 130gsm Silk
Four colour throughout.
If any of our showcase options would work for your project, take a note of the spec and jump on our quote form to receive your bespoke quotation. Or ping us an email on hello@exwhyzed.com if that is easier.
Enjoy looking through our showcase of recent digitally printed projects.
Promotional piece for the release of the CRI Juvenile album in October 2020.
Book printing, collation and assembly at Ex Why Zed in the UK.
Includes:
• Limited edition perfect-bound zine book
• ‘Juvenile’ album CD insert *pressed at Sony
• exclusive ‘Juvenile’ temporary tattoo sheet *supplied in
All lovingly packaged in an orange bubble envelope.
If you were “just wondering” about one last thing, well “just wonder” no more…here are the answers!
We have an Indigo 7800 SRA3 press and an Indigo 12000 B2 press.
For exceptionally wide folded leaflets we also have a MGI Meteor machine which can print upto a metre wide.
We have three basic choices for paper type:
• Silk, Gloss, Matt or Uncoated finish
• 90-170gsm for inside pages
(90gsm is super thin like newsprint, 120/130gsm is what we print 99% of our zines onto, 160/170gsm is a bulky paper that will feel glorious when your reader is flicking through)
• 250-300gsm for a thicker card cover
• We print the majority of our Zines’ inside pages onto either 120gsm uncoated or 130gsm silk. This is thick enough that images dont show through too much and feels quality.
• If you’d like the thickest card cover then that is 350gsm.
Still not sure? Grab yourself one of our free printed sample packs to help you decide because we realise that choosing paper over the internet is like reading braille with gloves on. Just ping us an email with your address and we’ll know where to send it to.
We prefer to say no. Any paper we print digitally has to be certifed for our indigo presses and sapphire coated. There are a few paper mills who supply this but a sheet you like at the local art shop is highly unlikely to be ready for us to print.
Ready to place an order? Brilliant, you’ll need to upload the files using www.wetransfer.com sending them to hello@exwhyzed.com and in the comments box let us know the number of copies you’re going for and the best address for delivery. We’ll then give your artwork a free preflight check to highlight any potential issues and will email with any advice or recommendations before going to production.
Once we receive your print ready artwork, we’ll aim to deliver in 5/6 working days (we do get busy at degree show time). If you are working to a crucial deadline PLEASE allow more time – there’s no harm in getting the artwork to us early so we can deliver a few days before the show starts 🙂
Unfortunately what is seen on an RGB, backlit screen is never going to be the same as it appears on paper in cmyk. It’s just impossible to achieve that and no printer could. You will have to allow for some difference in the colours between the two mediums but having something tangible in your hands and seeing the images on paper gives the publication a charm that just sending out a pdf wont do.
We don’t advertise our prices online because we prefer to open up a conversation with you and find out a little bit about the project. Your artwork is unique and bespoke, so in turn, we will provide you a unique and bespoke print quote for your job. I am sure you will take no fun in looking at a boring spreadsheet with rows of bemusing numbers so we don’t put you though that.
