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ARTISTS AND ARTWORKS LTD
Beautiful Artwork
PRINTING and SELLING
These are our views about printing the art files. You can of course use any printing company you wish and we are mentioning a company we have used just in case it is useful. Although this is a company from which we have received good service and good value, we are not involved with the company and also accept sometimes customers' experiences of a company may differ.
PRINTING
The 52 art files are individual files and therefore you can print as many individual files at a time as you wish.
We have used a printing company called Tradeprint, based in Dundee.
(Not Tradeprint London Ltd ).
Although Tradeprint is in Scotland and we are in Surrey, it has made no difference because, like so many companies today, your order is placed online. You choose the paper and quantity you want, make the payment, and then upload the artwork files.
What we order: Our experience is that we achieve a good print for our affordable print
price range in the following way:
- Click on their Posters' range, then on 'Indoor Posters' and choose a 170 gsm gloss finish paper
(170 gsm is a thick paper, midway between paper and card). Click on the A3 size and Single Sided.
Regarding the quantity you wish to order, Tradeprint is not a company to go to for a single print. However,
it's also worth mentioning that initially, whether you are going to sell directly to the public yourselves or
through shops, it's probably not necessary to print more than say 6 of the images.
The following are prices Tradeprint charge, including VAT, for their 'SAVER' delivery time
(prices as at 17/03/2025).
If you are ordering:
25 prints of each image = £20.08, 50 prints = £23.72, 75 prints = £27.36, 100 prints = £ 31.01
Therefore, for 25 prints, each print costs 80p, for 50 prints, each print costs 47p
for 75 prints, each print costs 36p, and for 100 prints, each print costs 31p. Further, if you
decide at any stage to order larger amounts, you will find that the individual print cost
reduces significantly.
Delivery to Mainland UK is included in the above prices. www.tradeprint.co.uk TEL: 0330 024 0020
However, although we've mentioned a printer we've used, you may have a printer you have used and are happy with their service. Or you may prefer finding a printer close to where you live so that you can visit them and receive a 'hard' copy colour print proof, which you rarely receive these days as most proofs are digital proofs.
If so, it's generally better finding a printer whose principal job is as a printer, rather than the shop/business which also sells other items and the printing a sideline. The reasons are twofold: printing companies usually cut their A3 size from a large sheet which means they cut a slightly larger size intially from the sheet to take into account the 'bleed which is generally 3mm all around the image, and the A3 size you will receive will be the actual A3 size. Whereas shops/businesses where printing is a sideline often buy A3 sheets and the 'bleed' has to come out of the A3 size which means you and your customers are receiving a slightly smaller size than A3.
Further it's possible that the printing machine the shop may use, where printing is a sideline, will not be as technically sophisticated as the printing company's machines. However, a simple way of testing this is by buying a single copy and, if for example, you're not happy with the print, for whatever reason, perhaps the colour for example, asking the shop if they can alter the settings to produce the colour it should be (the files you'll receive from us are set at CMYK which is a standard colour setting which should produce the same colours each time they're printed). But their settings may be limited to a couple of settings whereas the professional printing company will have a far greater range of settings.
BAGS
It's a good idea to offer the prints in a clear glossy bag - it's good presentation and it will keep the prints clean. The bag we use is a clear cellophane 'type' bag we buy from: Transpack www.transpack.co.uk (Tel: 02389 869999)
For the A3 size print, we buy a bag a little larger than the A3 size
(No. PPB1620. Size: 407mm X 508mm) 100 bags cost £17.43 plus Delivery £6.95 + VAT = £29.26.
Therefore 29p each
Further, as well as the above bag, if you are selling directly to the public in a market, for example, we also like to place a few of the prints on a thick white or off white paper which can substitute as a mount. Place the print on the 'mount' in a cellophane 'type' bag at this larger size
(also sold by Transpack. No. PPB1824+ Size: 465mm X 616mm. Cost = £42.54 incl. VAT and postage for 100 bags
Therefore 43p for each bag.
It looks good and also shows that the print on the mount is ready to be framed because that's what some of your customers are likely to do. We've taken a simple and inexpensive approach to this, and not what a professional framing shop would usually do, and found that a relatively thick and inexpensive A2 off-white paper can be found in 'The Works' (A2 size) Crawford & Black Sketch Pad. The whole pad = £4 but there are 15 pages, so each A2 page costs 27p. We used double-sided tape, placed the print in the centre of the mount and the whole process takes very little time.
However, we should also mention that we have recently seen on Amazon, two companies, one called Cello Express,
and the other Leuoso, neither of which we have dealt with, selling what appears to be the same or very similar bags to Transpack. They seem to include delivery in their price to Mainland UK and it's also worth checking out their prices.
SELLING PRINTS
You may decide to sell your prints in one or some of the following ways:
1) Online
2) Through Shops. Not only shops which already sell prints, but Furniture shops, Home Accessory shops, Garden Centres, Gift shops and any shop which might want to extend their range of products - Many people buy prints at one time or another.
3) Through Markets directly yourselves: There are a great number of markets (over 1070 in the UK). Not only through Arts & Crafts Markets, but also other Specialist Markets including the Specialist Food Markets etc., and General Markets.
4) If you don't want to sell in markets directly yourselves, you may find stallholders in different markets who may want to sell your prints.
5) Placing your prints in Coffee Houses, Restaurants, Wine Bars, Garden Centres, Gyms, Libraries etc. You would probably have to frame the prints to do this (consider the inexpensive Ikea 'Fiskbo' frame). Sell the prints and frames together.
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