Categorising Printed Materials

For this task we had to each bring in five printed items, then as a group but all of them together and work on differentiating them through some of the categories we had previously worked upon.

Format

In this category we split our materials into...

• Bags
• Packaging
• Promotional
• Publication/ Editorial 
• Business Cards

We then sub categorised these....

Above is the Promotional category subdivided into;

• Posters
• Fliers
• Badges
• Tags
• Envelopes
• Clothes Tag
• Leaflets

And this category was bags divided down into plastic and paper. 

We found that it was quite easy to put the materials into basic categories but then to further divide these was a lot harder.

Colour

We then moved then split up the materials by colour. We decided to do this by the number of colours...

One Colour

Two Colour

 Three Colour
And (closest to the wall) Full Colour

However on reflecting upon some of these categories we had realised some of the items where in the wrong place, and we had missed out a colour. And sometimes it hard to see it at first glance. And even though one colour is cheaper it does not mean the item is cheaper than one of full colour.

Production

Short Run

Mass

When it came to production we where told to split it them into Mass, Short Run and Bespoke, however we found this difficult to determine, as we weren't quite sure on the boundaries of mass and short run. And we also did not find anything to be bespoke.
But we came thought about the size and scale of the audience of the item to determine whether it was mass or short run i.e. bottle of water is mass, whereas a business card is short run.

Processes

Screen Print

Digital Print

PAD printed

(Top category) Embossed

Foiling

This category was also hard to arrange especially some of the digital/ screen print, it was hard to determine.

Cost

We then had to divide the items into the cost to make 1 of them individually, we did this from most expensive to least and we did this as a long line. We found this really hard to determine... 

For example we had places a Liz Earle bag right at the top of the scale but upon reflection it should of been further down the scale, because ...

• It's packaging, its meant to be thrown away at some point
• The purpose of the bag is to protect the more expensive products inside
• Even though it is from a higher end product line the stock is not that much more expensive than a usual paper bag.
• Plus it is one colour and stock, which is cheaper

From all of this I have learnt that design for print is so complex and each category has so many subdivisions, and the definitions can be blurry. I have also learnt that audience and purpose is a huge factor in the scale and cost of the print. And it also posed a few more questions that I would like to know more about....

What is PAD printing ? 
What qualifies Mass production ?
What is bespoke printing ? 
How are paper shop bags produced ?
How do you print on a napkin ?
How much does it cost to print a pound note ?
How do you foil in industry ?