We’re in the process of configuring a new piece of software to help us estimate, track and invoice work. It’s a huge undertaking, and is requiring us to examine every part of our business… particularly our actual costs and appropriate profit. When we’re done, we’ll be able to do work even faster because we’ll be eliminating some of the administrative overhead attached to getting work through our shop.

In the new year, if all goes well, our estimates and invoices will look a little different than they have for the last ten years or so. But you may also notice different prices. Some prices will go down a bit. Some will go up: It’s really hard to get two different systems to come up with the exact same numbers. If you request an estimate, and find that the price is radically different from what you expected or what you are used to, kindly call it to our attention so we can make sure it’s not a screw-up in the new system. It may take us a few months to work out all the “bugs,” and we really appreciate your understanding and help.

It is enlightening to look at printing prices empirically, and to look at prices for offset printing, digital printing and giclee printing on a regional basis.

Whether you need offset or digital printing, most likely you’d like to know what something will cost BEFORE you order the work. This makes sense to everyone. And we at Reno Type pride ourselves in turning your estimate request around right away. Nothing is as frustrating as wanting to print something and not being able to because you’re waiting for an estimate!

We typically do about 15 estimates in a day at Reno Type. Usually, we love doing estimates: most turn into jobs that we wil get to bill.

But some estimate requests are not so popular around here. We call them shopping lists. Yesterday we had the “opportunity” to bid on a job — a single piece of printing — that required 480 estimates. It went like this:
Version A = 8.5×5.5. Version B 3.75×8.75. Simple right? Hold on.

Give me prices for each as Black only, 4-color process, 4-color plus a pantone, and 4-color + a pantone + a varnish.
That took us from 2 estimates to 8. Then:

Not sure what sort of paper we want. Please quote on 100# coated cover and 100# uncoated cover and a really nice high-end textured paper. You still with me? 8 estimates just became 24.

Give me prices for 5,000, 10,000, 15,000. 20,000 and 25,000 each. Heh. Now we’re at 120 estimates.

Oh…. almost forgot. Mailing! Give me prices with and without mailing. Now 240.

And please give me a postage estimate… First class, and standard. 480.

This “estimate” will take the better part of an afternoon to complete, and will give a range from $200 to $20,000. The kicker will be when we get the phone call that another supplier is less… can you sharpen your pencil?

Whether Reno Type is your printer or not, do everyone a favor. Figure out what you need (either to print, or to accomplish with the project) BEFORE requesting an estimate. If you really don’t know the answer, share the information you do have with your printer and ask for suggestions! If the 240 estimate client had called and said “We want to send a postcard to everyone within a 10 mile radius of our location, want it to look good but only have a budget of $2500 including postage,” We’d have answered with a few additional questions that would have allowed us to drill down to the real need.

By the way… jobs that start as shopping lists almost always wind up costing more: If we spend 6 hours up front on an estimate, we have to recover those costs somehow

Reno Type hosted about 100 of our friends, neighbors and customers at an open house on Wednesday evening, October 8th. If there was a down side, it was that most of the shop had to work through it to make a deadline for a last minute, but very important project.

We’d like to thank all who came, Tad and his crew at Ben’s Fine Wine and Spirits for connecting us with the right quantity and quality of beer and wine, Nancy and Joe from Dish Cafe for the awesome spread, Michelle for (wo)manning the Vandercook and printing a little keepsake, Jayne for pouring and smiling, and of course Christine for taking the day off to help us clean, prepare and entertain!

An annual event perhaps? It feels that way right now!

If you missed the actual open house, please know that our door is always open (well… during business hours, and not on Nevada day…) and you are welcome to come by and have a look around.

How many times have you heard “you get what you pay for?”

Have I or someone at Reno Type ever told you that there will be a problem with the cheapest vendor? That they are likely to go out of business and leave you hanging?

These points are being driven home in heartbreaking ways. A few years ago, everyone with an ink-jet printer started doing “Giclée” reproductions. And somehow, they always were cheaper than Reno Type.

Today, for the umteenth time this year and artist walked in the door to say the “cheaper” giclee printer is no more, and now they must start all over again.

Turns out saving money can be a pretty expensive proposition.

We are pleased to announce the impending installation of a new piece of equipment that will allow Reno Type to produce the highest quality fine art prints on Canvas, Rag, Satin and photo gloss papers up to 60″ wide by any length. We’ll be posting a revised price list reflecting the new sizes in the near future. Of course Reno Type still offers high quality offset printing, digital printing, variable data printing and fine letterpress printing.

No one really cares whether it’s “polymerized toner,” “Dry Ink,” or something else altogether. So we just made sure that the new press put color on paper better and faster than anything else we have here… and that’s saying a LOT, as any of our clients will tell you!

The installation is in process right now, and even though there’s still lots work with calibration etc… but right out of the box all of us are impressed by the quality we’re seeing. It feels a little bit like Christmas!

As a business, we at Reno Type have made a choice to give to our community, and to try to make this corner of the world a somewhat better place. We do this by providing employees with insurance, and paying them a living wage. We also provide free and steeply discounted work to select non-profit organizations. Over $30,000 this year already. Our artConnect program, which helps artists and non-profits also makes a difference… but has a real cost.

In going over last quarter’s numbers, I realized the COST of giving. I wonder about it’s value though. Are our clients willing to pay a bit more for our work because of our generosity? Are folks who are not currently our clients willing to work with us instead of brand X because of all we do? Sadly not… or at least it does not seem so. The cheapest shop gets the work. In light of this, a smart businessman would cut wages to the industry average, and stop giving away work.

I never said I was smart, though. And there are two bottom lines to look at: the fiscal and the societal. If the only one I looked at was the traditional one, I don’t think I could look at myself in the mirror.

The client lucked-out on this one. Thanks to an estimating error, this invitation went out the door at about half price. Even so, we took the time to do a job everyone could be proud of. Two colors and a blind emboss on Crane Lettra.

Sometimes the medium is both message and messenger. Reno Type is passionate about giving form to inspiration, showcasing talent creativity in the best possible medium so that your vision is communicated without distraction.

We are excited to announce that once each month we will commission one piece of art to benefit charity.

At our expense we will also create a limited edition print of the artist’s work, with a designated number going to the artist and the charity, and selling some ourselves with a percentage of the profits of those sales donated to charity.

So if you or someone you know has an original work of art that you believe would connect to a wider audience, give Reno Type a call. We believe in spreading the love.

Check out Art Connect Nevada!

Frequently our clients ask for a “press-check” on work we print on our offset press. Because a press check increases the amount of time a job takes, and increases waste significantly (most of our offset runs are under 1000 sheets, and some of them are as small as 100), we charge a bit more for a job that requires a press check. It’s rare that anyone finds a problem correctable by the pressman on one of these checks. The work is always in register, and with today’s computerized color controls and ink keys, color-bars and a photo-spectrometer, the color is pretty much always what the client specified.

Funny thing though. Almost half the jobs that are press-checked get pulled off press and go back to pre-press or to the client. Why? Because someone waited till the job was on press to PROOF READ it. Or the person doesn’t “like” the color. How many times over the last 20 years have we heard “it didn’t look like that on my screen?”

We can’t help much with the proofreading thing (though we will call you if we NOTICE an error before the job is plated). But a recent project made us realize that there may be a reasonable solution for the “I don’t like the color issue.”

In the old days, high-end color separators maintained actual printing presses for the express purpose of PROOFING color. This was rendered obsolete by conventional “contract” proofs (Matchprints etc), which were not as accurate as “press proofs,” but were better than nothing. Matchprints were rendered obsolete by “digital” contract proofs, which were not as dependable as conventional matchprints, but again, were better than nothing. These were rendered obsolete by inkjet proofs, which were not as accurate as digital contract proofs, but were better than nothing. And today, most people rely on their screen to proof color. I can point to many reprinted jobs over the last few years which indicate that the screen may NOT be better than nothing for proofing color.

So in the end, folks are back to proofing color on press. But they are doing it by accident, under pressure, and on deadline. Maybe it’s time to press proof again? On purpose. The way we did it in the “old days.”

For $350, Reno Type can plate our 4-color press, bring it to color, and print 25 or so sheets on several papers. If you want to KNOW what your job will look like, or if your client needs to see how their logo will look on different papers, so that adjustments can be made, a press like ours can be a dream come true.

We’re not suggesting that you should print every job at Reno Type before you print it for “real.” What we ARE suggesting is that any job which is super critical (a brand identity in the early stages, or a catalog where people expect the colors in print to match the actual product, or fine art reproduction say), should have the critical elements stripped off and printed on a single press sheet. There is no better way to KNOW what something will look like ahead of time.

But you still need to proofread.