The rule of three no longer counts

The mantra has always been that there is a triangle to position every job. One side is quality, the second is price and the third is speed, The saying goes that you can have speed and quality, but you must pay for that; you can have price and speed, but at the expense of quality; you can have price and quality, but not with a fast delivery. Just how true this remains is open to question as many printers will claim to deliver all three simultaneously. But even the online printers who lead on price will charge a premium for same day or overnight delivery. Quality, or lack thereof, is not what it used to be. When first coined quality meant printing in register or finishing where the headers and footers lined up. With modern equipment this sort of quality can be guaranteed.

And of course there is now a fourth, equally important side to the triangle: sustainability. A buyer can have this if they are prepared to pay for it or perhaps to accept a slightly slower turnaround or less lift when printing on recycled paper for example. For many buyers a minor drop in quality will be less important than the ability to demonstrate a reduced carbon footprint that falls in line with their corporate CSR policies – a price worth paying in other words.

Perhaps there are other factors that can help distinguish one printer from another or one job from another. Consultancy or advice springs to mind. We will help you achieve a better job from your budget or we can produce a job with higher impact provided you are not seeking the lowest price or fastest delivery. We can help your overall budget by handling storage and logistics, removing some of the hassle around print, Thus the triangle that has persisted for decades becomes a hexagon with every job, every customer, mapped inside this polygon according to the relative value of an increasing number of variables. And every polygon can be different for each printer’s strengths and capabilities. The three-cornered hat no longer fits.