By Laura Donnelly In the previous article I gave you some pointers on selecting a vendor for production. Another very close tie-in to vendor selection is price. As the client you need to watch your budget and as your design firm we design with those costs in mind. However, even when both client and firm have the best intentions on staying within a budget we must weigh project features against costs and make some tough choices. 1. Let your design firm handle it. Seriously, when conceptualizing we design for the sky and scale back at a latter stage unless we are already bound by a low number at the start of a project. We know as we get closer to production we may need to cut out some finishing details in order to come through under the budget wire. We may take a special spot varnish away or determine a special metallic ink that costs extra can be done in the normal process colors instead or perhaps we decide not to round the corners. Whatever the sacrifice, your firm will work with you to make those decisions and perhaps you can find a little extra wiggle room in your budget. 2. Quantity is key! In the print world, the more you buy the lower the unit cost. We cannot stress this enough. In fact, we see the best price breaks at 5000 units or more. Here's an example. We recently purchased one-color stickers with our logo on it and wanted a price on one roll of a thousand. The printer quoted three levels (as they often do); one roll, three rolls and six rolls. To order just one roll of 1000 the cost was $137, three rolls was $48 per roll ($144) and six rolls cost $26 per roll ($156). It would have been insane for us to purchase only one roll as any responsible business person would have chosen the six. It's not always this easy. When you are dealing with items that are costing you around $50 to $100 per unit, coming up with that extra budget can be difficult. Weigh it against your potential ROI and go from there. 3. Per unit cost versus production budget. It may be easier to figure what you would like to spend per piece on a project, however, you should always speak of an overall print budget. A per unit cost can always be met. It all goes back to number two - how many are you producing? 4. The possibilities are endless. Printing is a very in-depth process with many variables that affect cost from paper and color to varnishes, cuts, foils, dies, folding, binding (and on it goes). Each feature will have an impact on cost. As a result you, you will not be able to get a quote prior to having the project designed first. This is another reason why number one is important. If you hire a firm to design a piece and simply hand the files over for production, how are you going to be able to subtract features in order to meet your budget? At this point, you have your files and the job is done according to the design firm as time had not been budgeted towards production management. There's a saying in the business world, time, cost and quality; pick two. The same can be said for printing. Features, cost and quantity; we won't make you pick two but your recipe has to be just right to achieve all three harmoniously. In the next article in this series we will talk about your files. Laura Donnelly is the Strategy Director for XO Create! and can be reached at 678.319.4242
XO Create! transforms brand on shelf through premium branding and packaging innovations.
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