The growth in digital technology all over the world has introduced various advancements in pre- existing technologies as well. This technology is steadily climbing to the top to reserve its place as a leading technology, which automatically means that various mega industries and organizations in the world would get rid of their existing technologies and acquire the latest technologies in order to meet consumer demands, creating a strong market base to pull in sales.
The printing industry also tends to follow this bandwagon effect. Introduction of digital printers is now underway. Meanwhile, here in Kenya, I understand that the phasing out of the traditional offset is also underway, but it is slow yet steady. Many commercial printers who established their companies in the 1990s or 1980s, skyrocketing with various number of offset printing machines, still believe in the power of those machines and that is the reason offset printing machines remain the most common and most used high volume commercial printing technologies.
To give a quick introduction to offset printing, there is no better way we can think of than a definition to start with. According to Google, offset printing is defined as a commonly used printing technique in which the inked image is transferred (“offset”) from a plate to a rubber blanket, then to the printing surface. Well this definition sums up everything so well that we have not got any other better definition than this.
The offset printing process begins with a desired print image that is flickered onto a plate, where the plate is transferred onto a rubber blanket. The paper or substrate then passes through the rubber blanket, which tends to stamp the image onto the substrate. A mix of ink, oil and water gives that fine image that the client is looking for. The ink is transferred into the printing area on the substrate and the film of water is transferred onto the non-printing area which makes sure that no ink is pasted onto the non-printing area. That is how offset printing works. The above explanation is a considerably basic one but stay tuned to our blogs page on the website because we are going to have lots of detailed blogs coming up very soon.
Smart Printers Limited started off their company with an arsenal of offset printing machines back in 1991 and till today, it remains the company’s main backbone when we talk about commercial printing. Not to forget, the company also has digital machines that came in recently, which we are going to talk about in our next blog. Come and experience how we carry out our offset printing. It will not get any better for you than to see this with your own eyes when we print your desired artwork for you
