Gonink - Design & Print

We’re not 100% certain, but we just might invented a new word to use in the world of web design.

Just recently at two different meetings about Web design, it was mentioned that the World Wide Web is nothing more than real estate and it is valuable. If it weren’t, people wouldn’t be out there buying up domain names because of their perceived value. Obviously there are certain rules and regulations to follow when buying a domain name i.e. You can’t own www.nike.com unless you own Nike, but there might be a letter combination out there that is valuable.

But the real idea behind the phrase “Web estate” is how we recently explained Web design to a client. From all that we’ve learned over the past couple of years, one clear problem still exists. A lot of uneducated clients are still out there and we’re not talking about their high school diplomas. We’re talking about their knowledge of the Internet. People really still don’t have a clear understanding of how it all works, so we came up with this simple explanation.

The Web site property and who owns it. Think of www.yoursite.com as being owned by the government. All government offices in one way or another own your address and that’s what your domain name is - an address.

Now think of the piece of land you want to build your Web site on. In the Web Estate this is a “server” where files, information, data, etc are stored. So a land developer in a housing addition is similar to that of a domain hosting company. They have a piece of property you want to store your Web Estate on.

Finally, you need to build your Web Estate and that’s where someone like Gonink comes into play. A Web Site designer is your architect and your construction workers. We create the blueprint, lay the foundation, put up walls, run the wire and plumbing and even put the door knobs on your front door.

So the next time you’re thinking about Web site design, think of it like building a house.

The other day I was sitting with a business associate talking about how we could work together and we got on the subject of printing because part of our possible relationship would be just that – printing. One of the requests she mentioned was printing 25,000 pieces of letterhead for a government agency. Unfortunately for us printing something of that magnitude isn’t cost efficient and I explained to her that I would send it to my ‘offset’ guy. Well that word is just about as foreign to her as relax is to me at times. So let us take a moment to explain how a couple of different printing processes work.

First there is digital printing, which is the newest of all technologies and the one we exclusively use at Gonink. A revolving drum builds up an electrical charge that is nothing more than static electricity. And then a laser pointed at the drum discharges the surface in the patterns and letters to be printed. This creates a positive (+) and negative (-) area on the paper. A fine powder called “toner” that is positively charged is coated on the paper and since it is a positive charge, it only sticks to the negative areas. The paper then passes through heated rollers fusing the toner to the paper. Voila’ you now have a printed piece from a laser printer.

The other and more common printing method is offset lithography. This process works by transferring an image photographically to thin paper, metal or plastic printing plates. Rollers then apply oil-based ink and water to the plates. Since oil and water don’t mix, the oil-based ink won’t adhere to the non-image areas. Only the inked image portion is then transferred to a rubber blanket (cylinder) that then transfers the image onto the paper as it passes between it and another cylinder beneath the paper. The term offset refers to the fact that the image isn’t printed directly to the paper from the plates, but is offset or transferred to another surface that then makes contact with the paper.

Both processes use what is called CMYK printing and that refers to four basic ink colors which are Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. A digital machine uses all of the ink colors (toner) mixed during the printing process and puts it on the paper at the same time. Whereas offset printing uses each color of ink and it is applied separately.

So which should you choose? In the past offset printing was the commercial choice for any business, but digital technological advancement’s have given digital printers a stronger presence in the printing market. But it all still comes down to price and that price is based on quantity. A lot of digital printers will have a cut-off of around 3,000-5,000 pieces before they become less cost efficient compared to an offset press.

Since the beginning of our blog, it has been focused on being a new business and we’ve made an attempt to give you, our readers, a bit of insight to the business world. And just recently we came across a very small business article talking about blogs and how it can benefit your business. In the article it mentions that your content has to be relevant enough for visitors to return time and time again. We do feel that our articles are relevant to some, but not enough of you and we want to change it up just a bit.

To build a bigger readership and involve you, our clients, we’re going to include more articles on design, but not the boring and jargon-filled posts that really mean nothing to you the client. We’re going to include more information on things such as color harmony, layout and even little tid-bits here and there.

So stay tuned and let us change it up a bit for you – our readers.