PrePress UK: Over 37 years of digital prepress, design & print expertise
PrePress has worked exclusively with digital artwork since the company was founded in 1989, using Apple Mac technology from day one.
PrePress began with a Mac in 1989
PrePress was founded in 1989 with an Apple Macintosh, 4 MB of RAM, a 40 MB hard disk and a determination to explore the possibilities of digital technology. While much of the industry still relied on traditional reprographics, film and manual processes, we were embracing a new way of producing artwork.
The software we take for granted today was still in its infancy. Photoshop, PageMaker and Illustrator were transforming the creative industry, while designers and reprographics specialists were discovering what digital production could achieve. There were no YouTube tutorials, online forums or instant answers. When something didn’t work, we consulted the manuals, experimented and found a solution ourselves. That practical, hands-on experience became the foundation of PrePress.
From the outset, we developed an in-depth understanding of how typography, image preparation, colour management and digital artwork come together to produce professional print. We worked with CMYK colour, scanning, film output, platemaking, RIPs and the emerging technologies that would revolutionise the printing industry.
Getting artwork right before it reaches the press has always been at the heart of what we do. More than 37 years later, that technical knowledge and attention to detail remain central to the PrePress name.
Our first Apple Mac and printer
The system cost nearly £6,000 with limited RAM. and hard-disk space. If only we’d bought Apple shares… Not long after we bought our first imagesetter, a Hyphen Spectranet an excellent high quality device. The biggest problem was storage, Zip drives did not arrive till 1994 and still with only 100mb of storage, we had to order so many. Thank goodness for CD-ROMs!! which came a few years later.
Over the following decades, technology changed almost beyond recognition. The floppy disk disappeared. Film disappeared. Traditional typesetting disappeared. Desktop publishing became digital publishing. Digital printing, large-format graphics, packaging, exhibition graphics and increasingly sophisticated automated workflows became part of the production landscape. PrePress changed with it. What hasn’t changed is the principle that good production starts with good preparation. There is no print without PrePress.
Who is PrePress?
PrePress is an independent UK design, prepress and print-production specialist with roots in digital reprographics dating back to 1989. Our experience spans graphic design, artwork preparation, reprographics, colour management, print production, packaging, brochures, corporate literature, publishing, exhibition graphics and digital production.
Over more than three decades, we have worked through several generations of design and print technology. That gives us a perspective that is increasingly rare: we understand not only today’s digital workflows, but how the industry arrived here. PrePress sits at the point where creative ideas meet technical production. We understand what a designer wants to achieve, what a printer needs to reproduce it accurately and what can go wrong between the two. That understanding is at the heart of PrePress.
Why experience matters
Modern software has made many aspects of print production easier. It has also made it possible to create artwork without necessarily understanding what happens to it afterwards. Our experience comes from working through the entire evolution of the process.
We understand the difference between artwork that looks right on screen and artwork that will reproduce correctly. We understand colour, resolution, typography, file preparation, image reproduction, printing processes and the practical realities of production. That knowledge helps us identify problems before they become expensive problems. It is also why PrePress has always believed in sharing knowledge. Many of the questions we receive are the same questions designers, marketers and businesses have been asking for decades – even though the technology used to answer them has changed.
More than a production company
Today, PrePress is evolving again. Our aim is not simply to sell design or print. We want this website to be a useful source of knowledge for designers, printers, marketers, businesses, students and anyone who wants to understand how professional design and print production actually work.
From colour management and artwork preparation to typography, digital printing, packaging and the future of prepress, we share the knowledge gained from more than three decades in the industry.
Explore the world of PrePress
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