Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between digital and offset print?

Digital printing has become the future of today’s printing industry, opening the door to a whole new way of printing and giving businesses the unique opportunity to save money on their printing requirements in a whole new way. Digital printing isn’t the only way, however. As with all things, newer isn’t always better! Here’s some information on the difference between digital and offset printing, and what that means for your print job.

Offset Printing

Offset printing has paved the way to making the print industry what it is today.  Offset print allows today’s printers to create large volumes of very precise, high quality work by creating films or plates with your images (creating an “offset” image), transferring them to a rubber blanket then onto your printing surface using one simple rule: Water and ink don’t mix. The aluminium plates are first coated in water, and then in ink. The ink adheres to the image but is repelled from the wet non-image area, allowing it to be transferred smoothly onto your paper.

How do we, as your printer, decide when we should use offset printing and when we should use its digital counterpart? It’s important to note that the setup time and costs required for offset printing processes may make it an inefficient choice for quantities under 2,000; however, for larger print projects it’s often more economic than digital processes.

Offset print has the advantage of being able to print gold and silver metallics and can sometimes match spot colours more accurately than digital print.

The other factor we consider when deciding between offset and digital printing is the timeframe you require your job in. Because offset printing jobs require plates to be made before printing, and drying time after printing, digital printing can save time on your job. 

Digital Printing

Digital printing is growing in popularity in the printing industry because it makes printing small quantities of products more cost effective. It also has a feature known as digital variable printing, which allows you to further personalise your print jobs. With digital variable printing we can insert names, individual addresses and other customer specific information into your job with very little difficulty, time or added expense because the computer takes care of everything.

In digital printing, there are no plates or films required. Your print job is sent directly from the computer to our high quality commercial printers in the same way you would print documents from your computer at home. The printer reads the digital information in the file, then uses a four colour process to create the final image from toner rather than ink.  This process means there is very little waste created from your job and the time it takes to complete your job is reduced significantly.

Another great benefit of digital printing is the ease with which you can proof your colours directly from a digital file.  We have three digital presses on site and can provide 100% accurate colour proofs for you to check. 

The decision to use offset or digital printing processes will be made on a case-by-case basis by the capable team at Fusion Print.

Delivery times

We always do our best to meet whatever delivery times you require. We are here to help you and have helped many of our customers meet there deadlines. Some simple jobs are completed on the same day while more complex jobs normally require extra time. Please let us know what your requirements are and our experienced team will give you the best possible assistance