Printed, bound and mailed
from one building.
Omega Lithograph is a commercial printer in Plymouth, Minnesota. Offset presses, digital presses, prepress, bindery and direct mail are all at 15090 23rd Ave N — so a job that needs all five never leaves the building between them. Printing here since 1987.
Five departments,
one address.
Prepress, offset, digital, bindery and mailing. Most jobs need three of the five, and plenty of shops only own one of them.
Offset Printing
One to five colors on the Heidelbergs, from metal plates that get reused rather than thrown away. Process color for photographs, spot color when a brand color has to land the same on every job.
- 1–5 color
- Process & spot
- Soy-based inks
- 14 × 20
Digital Printing
Full color straight from the file, with no plate to make first. That set-up cost is what makes short runs expensive on a press, so below a certain quantity digital is simply the cheaper way to print the same job.
- Short runs
- Full color
- No plates
- Black & white
Prepress
Layout, proofing and platemaking — everything that happens before ink. Files image direct to metal on a Screen platesetter with no film step in between, and a proof comes back to you before anything goes on a press.
- Layout
- PDF & hard proofs
- Direct-to-plate
- Scanning
Bindery
Folding, saddle stitching, coil binding, drilling, padding, shrink wrapping and cutting. A pile of flat printed sheets is not a booklet yet; this is the department that makes it one.
- Folding
- Saddle stitch
- Coil binding
- Cutting
Direct Mail
Ink-jet addressing that wafer-seals in line, an inserter that fills an envelope with up to seven pieces, and bulk presorted mail — standard or first class — at postage rates well under the counter price.
- Addressing
- Inserting
- Wafer seal
- Presort
From your file
into the mail.
A print job is usually handed between a prepress house, a printer, a trade bindery and a mail house. Here it is five departments in one building, and one phone number when you want to know where it has got to.
Prepress
The file comes in and gets checked the way a printer has to check it: fonts, image resolution, bleed past the trim line, and colors built so they separate the way you expect. If there is no artwork yet, prepress will lay it out — a letterhead or a full-color catalog, both start in the same place.
Proof
A proof comes back to you as an emailed PDF, or as a hard copy you can hold, whichever the job needs. This is the last cheap place to find a mistake. After it, a correction costs a plate and press time instead of two minutes.
Press
Approved artwork images straight onto metal — no film in between — and the plate hangs on the press. Long runs, and jobs that have to hold an exact spot color, go offset at one to five colors. Short runs go on the Konica Minolta digital presses, where there is no plate to pay for.
Bindery
Printed sheets get folded on the MBO, saddle stitched, coil bound, drilled, padded, shrink wrapped, or cut down on the programmable Saber. Because bindery is in the same building as the presses, the job goes from press to finishing without a courier in the middle of it.
Mail or pick up
A mailing goes onto the Cheshire transport for ink-jet addressing and wafer sealing, or into the Bell & Howell inserter, and out bulk presorted — standard or first class. Anything that is not a mailing is boxed and waiting for you at 23rd Avenue North.
The everyday paper
a business runs on.
Cards, letterhead and envelopes that match each other. Booklets and catalogs. Forms and labels a lot of shops stopped printing. See all products ↗
What the work
is done on.
The presses and the finishing kit decide what a shop can quote at all, so here is what is in the building. Full equipment list ↗
Three Heidelbergs
A 14 × 20 GTOF five color, plus GTOVP perfectors in four color and two color. A perfector prints both sides of the sheet in one pass through the press.
Konica Minolta digital
A C7000 for color and a 1052 for black and white — the short-run half of the shop, where a job of a few hundred does not have to pay for platemaking.
MBO folders, Muller Martini stitcher
MBO B18 and B21C folders with right-angle units, up to four folds each. The Muller Martini Minuteman collates, stitches and trims a book in one pass.
Cheshire and Bell & Howell
A Cheshire Model 7000 ink-jet transport that wafer-seals in line with addressing, and an inserter that will stuff up to seven pieces into a single envelope.
Since 1987.
Kevin Hanson founded Omega Lithograph in 1987, and many of the people here have been with the company since the beginning. That is unusual in this trade, and it is most of the reason a job does not need explaining twice. More about Omega ↗
Soy-based inks only
Soy ink carries its pigment in a vegetable oil rather than a petroleum one. It is the only ink Omega prints with.
Plates that get reused
Metal plates, reused rather than thrown out — not the disposable paper or plastic plates some shops run. Metal also holds fine detail all the way through a long run.
A proof before every press run
Emailed PDF or hard copy. Approving a proof is the moment a job stops being changeable for free, so it is worth reading properly.
What is the difference between offset and digital printing?
Offset transfers ink from a metal plate onto a rubber blanket, and from the blanket onto the sheet. Making that plate costs money before the first copy exists, so the longer the run the less each copy carries of it — and a plate is how you hold an exact spot color. Digital prints straight from the file with no plate at all, so a short run does not pay for one. Omega runs both and quotes whichever is cheaper at your quantity.
Do you print short runs?
Yes — that is what the digital presses are for. There is a crossover point where the plate stops mattering and offset becomes cheaper per copy, and where it falls depends on the quantity, the number of colors and the stock. Send the specs and you get both numbers rather than a guess.
Will I see a proof before it goes on press?
Yes. Proofs go out as an emailed PDF or as a hard copy, whichever suits the job. Ask for a hard copy when color or a fold is the thing you are worried about — a screen is lit from behind, and it cannot show you whether a score will crack.
What files do you need from me?
A press-ready PDF with the fonts embedded, images at full resolution and roughly an eighth of an inch of bleed past the trim is the easiest thing to work from. If all you have is a Word file, a photograph and an idea, prepress will lay it out instead. Either way it goes through send a file.
Can you mail the job as well as print it?
Yes, in the same building. Addressing runs on a Cheshire Model 7000 ink-jet transport that wafer-seals in line with addressing, and the Bell & Howell inserter will put up to seven pieces into one envelope. Mail goes out bulk presorted, standard or first class, at postage rates considerably below the counter price.
Where are you?
The shop is at 15090 23rd Ave N, Plymouth, MN 55447 — prepress, presses, bindery and mailing all at that one address. Plymouth, Maple Grove, Minnetonka, Wayzata, Golden Valley, St. Louis Park, Eden Prairie and Minneapolis are each a short run from it; see service areas.
Tell us what you need
printed.
Quantity, size, stock, how many colors, and the date you need it in your hands. Send that over and we will price it — or call (763) 475-1826 and we will work it out on the phone.