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Creative Industry Printing

Ex Why Zed is the ideal print partner for your design agency, studio and self-initiated project. We are accessible, knowledgable and deliver a wide range of high-quality print to impress you and your clients.
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Impressive print at fair prices

We want to become a reliable cog in your supply mechanism. Send us your artwork, we’ll preflight it for no extra charge, then print it and deliver with no fuss allowing you to concentrate on running the creative aspects of your business.

We are proud that a large percentage of our business comes from repeat orders and happy client referals without the need for expensive advertising campaigns. In turn this helps us keep our prices down which ultimately helps make your projects more commercially viable. Win win!

CREATIVE PRINTING

Congratulations on getting your publication ready for print!

Thanks for stopping by and welcome to Ex Why Zed. We appreciate you may never have printed before and that the terminology, jargon, amount of choices can be baffling. We have great experience of printing since we launched in 2006. Sit back and relax, we’re here to guide you through the process.

It won’t be long now before you experience that super exciting moment when a glorious stack of boxes arrives and you unpack the first work. YOUR WORK. Enjoy the feel and the smell of them…you put a lot of effort in for this moment.

A ZILLION OPTIONS

The only barrier is your imagination

There are almost infinite possibilities on size, finishing and papers so we offer expert knowledge and advice before your job goes to press, a competitive print quote to stretch your budget and a high quality standard of printing delivered nationally throughout the UK and globally. We are super keen to print your work so if our quote doesn’t match your budget then do let us know and we will work with you to compromise on a spec that does. We don’t like losing creative work based on price alone.

We are creatives too so offer foiling, embossing, debossing, spot varnishing, die-cutting, motion cutting, fold out pages, GF Smith papers and many more solutions to make your project unique (all these options are premium and do jump the cost up so might not be ideal if you’re on a budget)

AESTHETICALLY BEAUTIFUL PRINT

Printing winning creative projects

We have been doing this a while now and have seen a lot of impressive publications come off our presses.  To give you a head start with your creative printing, here are some ideas of what can be achieved (and photos of them to the right).  Each has its own characteristics which have proven to be winning combinations from a production perspective, cost per unit and most importantly, have reader appeal.

If any of our showcase options would work for your project, take a note of the spec and jump on our quote form to receive your bespoke quotation. Or ping us an email on hello@exwhyzed.fixed-staging.co.uk if that is easier.

Showcase 1 – a high-end book to use an annual or promotional piece for you agency and studio:
265x200mm Perfect Bound Books
4pp Cover onto 300gsm Silk
Matt Lamination to outer
160pp Text onto 130gsm Silk
Four colour print throughout
As a guide, you could print 100 copies of this for £.

Tweaks you could make to this spec:
Increase to A4, decrease to A5.
Change the number of inside pages depending on the scope of your content.
Silk has a slight sheen, gloss would be shinier or uncoated for a more tactile finish.

Showcase 2 – a professional looking, stapled portfolio to showcase your work:
A5 Wire Stitched Booklets
4pp Cover onto 300gsm Silk
Matt Lamination to outer
36pp Text onto 130gsm Silk
Four colour print throughout
As a guide, you could print 20 copies of this for £.

Tweaks you could make to this spec:

Showcase 3 – an authentic, old school zine to fill with creative illustrations, typography and photos:
A5 Wire Stitched Booklets
40pp Self Cover
onto 115gsm Uncoated
Four colour print throughout
As a guide, you could print 250 copies of this for £.

Some tweaks you could consider:
• You can add a thicker card cover.
• Switch to silk or gloss for a smoother finish and brighter colour repro.
• The more copies you print, the lower the unit price will be.

Get your print quote
THE PROOF IS IN THE PUDDING

Enjoy looking through our showcase of recent creative print projects.

TAKING NIKE AIR TO PRINT
Paq Works x Offspring x Nike Air Max x Ex Why Zed

What’s your favourite pair of Nike Air Max?! Maybe the 97s with the horizontal ripples or the originals with the oversize soles and visible air pocket? Ours are 95s in an orange and grey colourway ????

Offspring x Air Max zine, expertly designed by @paq.works is a glorious love letter to all sneaker freaks complete with camoe dust jacket and folded poster.

Enjoy plenty of insight and some groundbreaking new takes on this iconic series from @offspringhq

BENEFITS OF OUR PRINTING
When printing with Ex Why Zed you get all of the following as standard
Attentive Knowledgable Customer Service
Creativity doesn’t start at 9am and switch off at 5pm so ping us an email with your spec or order 24/7 and we’ll come back to you promptly.
Free Paper Samples
While we’ve done our best on our paper choices page to make one sheet of white paper look different to another sheet of white paper, there’s nothing better than seeing them in reality so you can stroke, sniff and examine them in close up. Jump on our form and we will send out a pack out asap.
UK & Worldwide delivery
Delivery within the UK is free. Yes, FREE! The portfolios will arrive the day after they leave us. We also deliver work around the world too and just charge the shipping at our cost price from the cheapest courier on the day.
Super Helpful Set Up Guides
When it is time to start artworking your final book take 5 minutes to read through our file set up guides. We have made them as user friendly as possible but if you’re stuck drop us a call or email for a quick answer.
No Minimum Order
At Ex Why Zed you can print any quantity from 1 upwards and the exact number you need. If you'd like 71 zines then we'll print 71 zines!. If your magazine is in its infancy then a long print run might be out of reach for Issue One. Our digital presses offer the perfect solution with low unit prices so you can test the market first.
Choose a bespoke size
'A' sizes are great and fit neatly into 'C' size envelopes but why not mix it up and rebel against convention by choosing a bespoke and custom size for your zine.
Environmentally friendly papers
All of our papers are FSC Approved. These are arguably better than 100% recycled papers because there are less chemicals involved in making them. We also use vegetable inks on our litho press.
Free Print Quote
Now you have spent a good chunk of time reading about what we can produce, jump over to our intuitive quote form and let us know what we can print for you. We'll work out a bespoke price and get a quote over asap to keep momentum going in the project.

STILL HAVE QUESTIONS?

If you were "just wondering", well just wonder no more, here are the answers!
View all our FAQ's
How much does it cost?
What paper can I print onto?

We have three basic choices for paper type:

• Silk, Gloss, Matt or Uncoated finish
• 90-170gsm for inside pages
 (90gsm is super thin like newsprint, 120/130gsm is what we print 99% of our booklets onto, 160/170gsm is a bulky paper that will feel glorious when your reader is flicking through)
• 250-350gsm for a thicker card cover
We print the majority of our booklets inside pages onto either 115gsm uncoated or 130gsm silk. This is thick enough that images dont show through too much and feels quality.
• If you’d like an extremely thick cover then go for a 350gsm stock.

Still not sure? Grab yourself one of our free printed sample packs to help you decide because we realise that choosing paper over the internet is like reading braille with gloves on. Just ping us an email with your address and we’ll know where to send it to.

Do you print onto GF Smith?

Yes. They have a range of 200+ papers covering all manner of colour, texture and imagination.  Do get in touch with them direct on samples@gfsmith.com for a sample pack.

What sizes do you print?

Our maximum portrait size is A3 which is an impressive 420mm high x 297mm wide.  The maximum square size is 297x297mm.  The maximum landscape size A4 so 210mm high x 297mm wide.

Not familiar with paper sizes?
Here they all are plus some of our favourites from other publications you might have enjoyed.

Do you do paper sample packs?

Yes, ping us your details on our sample pack form and we’ll get one in the post asap.

While we’ve done our best on our paper choices page to make one sheet of white paper look different to another sheet of white paper, there’s nothing better than seeing them in reality so you can stroke, sniff and examine them in close up.

What programme should I use to set up my artwork?

Adobe Indesign is the industry standard for page layout. It is easy to learn and fast to use. They also have a one week free trial on adobe.com

Photoshop, as you know, is super powerful for image manipulation but Indesign is a lot easier for working with multiple pages and crop marks.  Additionally, any text rendered in Photoshop tends to print slightly out of focus but from Indesign it will be crisp and perfect.

Free alternatives to Indesign which I have heard our customers mention are Affinity Publisher and Canva, but we haven’t tried either yet.

© 2023 Ex Why Zed Ltd. All Rights Reserved | A suggestion to the rest of the print industry - why not use some brain power and creativity to write your own content rather than copying ours again? | Website by Catchfish Online