The Digital Trade Printer: A New Approach to an Old Idea

(Watch Frank Romano’s video interview with HPG’s Greg Wallace here.)

Back in the day, trade printers would gang print jobs in full color from a number of small commercial printers onto one large sheet. This cut costs and allowed small printers to offer color-printed jobs to their customers. In many cases, these trade printers were also called gang printers. They advertised extensively in industry trade publications.

This was in the day when most small printers had black-and-white offset duplicators and four-up or larger color presses were beyond their reach. Full-color printing required color separations, exacting prepress and highly skilled staff. Small and quick printers had high school kids.

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About Frank Romano

Frank Romano has spent over 60 years in the printing and publishing industries. Many know him best as the editor of the International Paper Pocket Pal or from the hundreds of articles he has written for publications from North America and Europe to the Middle East to Asia and Australia. Romano lectures extensively, having addressed virtually every club, association, group, and professional organization at one time or another. He is one of the industry's foremost keynote speakers. He continues to teach courses at RIT and other universities and works with students on unique research projects.