Chineses Printing Show Down

Over the next few weeks (maybe a little over a month) I plan on ordering some print work from China and seeing if the price and the long wait is really worth the it. I will source out a total of 10 different companies from a few different websites and have them all print the exact same thing.

The Product 

I will be going with 25 postcards, this is a small enough sample that there shouldn't be a change in one from another. I will be sticking with a standard postcard size of 5.47 x 4.21. It will also allow me to do a full scale color print on one side to check for color matching, saturation of inks, and alignment. On the back I will be using just a black to check out the sharpness and for any bleed. All postcards with have sharp edges to see how they hold up with overseas shipping. If I get the choice of a stock for paper I will use the 80lb matte with no coating.

The Base

To judge all of these cards I will have a local print shop from me also print me out some postcards. I will use these as a baseline of what I would expect from everyone else. I plan on staying away from places like Kinko's and Staples due to their low performance printers and staff that isn't quite trained correctly. I might do a write up later where I do printing from different quick copy shops like those and showcase the differences from each one.

So look out for an update to this series in about a month, and for a new review of different things along the way.