Digital Solutions
Specializing in Design Elements; 2D and 3D Assets; A/V Capture, Process, Playback; UI & Full Stack Development
Digital Solutions
Specializing in Design Elements; 2D and 3D Assets; A/V Capture, Process, Playback; UI & Full Stack Development
13 years of graphics finishing experience laid the foundation for a standard of excellence. It was a companywide mantra, and for good reason. Press time is always expensive; In many cases it is very expensive. Foil leaf stamping is the creme de la creme of printed mediums and it is evident in a glance that you are looking at a triple-A product. That crisp, sharp, gleaming image conveys integrity, backbone, and confidence like nothing else and as such it is a costly process. There is no room for error on a medium like that.
Working in graphics finishing demands the highest echelon of care, attention to detail, an unusually keen eye, and the ability to process all of that information at a very rapid pace. At speed, the press is applying anywhere from 2,000 to 7,200 impressions per hour. Often, there are between four and twenty four images per sheet. One roll of foil can cost upwards of ten thousand ($10,000), particularly with holographic and specialty foils. The "bad day" has no place in the industry and it doesn't take a math whiz to estimate damages of inattention. A pressman that catches a typo in a makeready stage - that is, the alignment of tooling and the final preparatory stage before the run - the "an" that was accidentally engraved on the stamping die as "a" instead that slipped through the cracks can arguably prevent a would-be disaster. The cost of which an individual could build a beachfront house with, paid in cash, in the course of one eight-hour shift.
These are serious investments. For businesses with the confidence in the veracity and value of their product, and the desire to convey it to the customer.
While poetic, it is not one bit flighty to argue that every pressman is a proofreader on the edge and a guardian angel of sorts.
While that is not the average cost, it is not hyperbole or an extreme lens at all. With costs like that, stakes are high. Every component needs to be thoroughly micro-examined and the workflow needs to be as solid as cold forged steel. Every unit and every sheet is critical.
That person is assuming a serious responsibility
In graphics finishing there is an epithet that every customer needs their product yesterday. You can't sell your product without your packaging and every entrepreneur knows that while there is a lot to factor in, ultimately the state of a business is binary:
"In business you're either growing or you're dying."
While it is very reminiscent for me to think about the smell of the oil, the whine of the flywheels in those behemoth machines - they are as precise as Swiss watches on a truly massive, with awesome 5 ton crunching jaws with heating elements that keep the tooling well above boiling with a tolerance of less than one degree Fahrenheit. The thunder of the rollers and the cadence of the sheets firing out in delivery, warm like fresh copier paper and the peculiar smell of the foils and papers mingling with the smell of the oil, and more than anything, the people. But simultaneously, I also remember that is only a part of me. It's an element of my constitution and it always will be until the day I pay the debt that I owe to the grave. But we are all microcosms of the world we live in and we are also growing and changing and drawing upon successes and mistakes and refining our scope and taking aim again and demanding more of ourselves this time and even more still next time, I keep what I learned and what I practiced, refine it, and I take it with me to my next big adventure.
I believe that every business is unique, and that's why I take a customized approach to every project. I work closely with my clients to understand their goals, target audience, and budget, and then develop a tailored marketing strategy that delivers results. As products are finalized, mobilized, and deployed and adapt into the workflow, I collect data on the entire pipeline. Additional refinement, fine tuning, and future planning is highly effective at this stage with a solid body of data to draw and report from. Additionally, the longer we are able to conduct business and contract together, the more cost efficient the entire process becomes.