My fiancee and I just installed a standee for 300: Rise of an Empire. It was large, complex, and surprisingly reminiscent of another large format print standee we had recently installed for The Hobbit. Not that the graphics were in any way similar. Rather, it was the structure of the standee that gave me a deja vu.
I looked up the photos for the two standees in our iPhoto database. Both consisted of side-by-side graphic panels of movie characters. In the case of both 300: Rise of an Empire and The Hobbit, there was a central panel, then two panels (one on either side) set back about a foot, then two more panels (one on either side) set back another foot.
Working from the center outward to the left and right, both standees were symmetrical. In each case, the left and right panel for each tier was set back an equal distance, creating a staircase effect, with the center panel closest to the viewer and the rest of the panels recessed further and further back.
Why Is This Relevant?
Right away I saw that the structure of the 300: Rise of an Empire standee was exactly the same as that of The Hobbit standee. I surmised that the film studio had designed the standees in such a way as to use one set of diecutting dies for both in order to save money.
I have mentioned before that making a cutting die for custom pocket folders or any other diecutting job is expensive. In fact, I just gave a print brokering client of mine an estimate for 1,000 8.5” x 11” print booklet covers (front and back cover sets). The job requires two separate dies that will cost more than half the total printing price (about $550.00 of the approximately $900.00 total).
Saving money by reusing dies is smart. My guess is that even though The Hobbit has seven panels and 300: Rise of an Empire has only five, the five panels that the two standees have in common may well have been cut using the same dies. I’m not absolutely sure. All I know is that it would have been a great way to save money.
But what about the sixth and seventh panel of The Hobbit, which were not included in 300: Rise of an Empire (which was only a five-panel standee)? (Keep in mind that I’m only speaking of the background elements—top, bottom, left, right, and back panels that go together to create boxes supporting the flat graphic panel for each level.) Well, at least it would have been cheaper to create dies for two additional panels (plus the five panels both standees have in common) than to create all twelve from scratch with all different dies.
Applying This Diecutting Concept to Your Work
If this seems unduly complex, let’s simplify it and apply it to custom pocket folders. On the simplest level, if you choose a standard format, you will use a pre-made die that the printer keeps on hand for such jobs, and you will save $300.00 to $500.00 on your project. This is a significant savings.
Granted, you will need to choose a standard size, standard pocket shape, standard placement for business cards, etc. But this need not be a problem if you create sufficiently distinctive artwork to set your custom pocket folders apart from everyone else’s.
Nevertheless, in some cases, depending on your intended use, this won’t be practical. Maybe you will need a “build” in one pocket so the folder can hold a larger number of inserts than usual. In this case, you would need to pay for the printer to create a custom die. At least this would be yours to use again for subsequent jobs.
To expand upon this concept a bit, let’s say you were to diecut the cards you plan to insert in the pockets of the folder. In this case it would save you money to approach the design as a unit and perhaps create a diecut pattern that could be repeated for the various step-down cards. You might ask the printer to reposition the same metal cutting die as needed to diecut the cards. If you use the same general outline, you can make one die and just move it as needed. Again, this would save money.
General Rules of the Diecutting Trade
Printing companies that produce a lot of custom pocket folders will probably have a variety of standard dies from which you can choose. You’re essentially using someone else’s die in this case, or, more specifically, you’re using one die from the printer’s common pool of dies.
If someone else has a custom die made for their project, however, you cannot use it for your job. Conversely, although the steel cutting die that was custom made for your project will remain at your printer’s place of business, he cannot use it for anything but your work.
Conclusion: Plan Ahead for Diecuts
So the smartest thing you can do is plan ahead, group die cutting tasks together to minimize the number of dies needed, and use standard dies where possible. If you can use the same die the following year for the updated version of your annual project, even better. Forethought will save you a lot of money.
This entry was posted
on Thursday, February 27th, 2014 at 10:01 am and is filed under Pocket Folder Printing, Standees.
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