I have been printing my work through DS Colour Labs in Manchester for my portfolio for the past year, and have been really impressed with the quality of their prints, and the professionalism they have in regards to time it takes to receive your prints and the way they are packaged. This past experience has influenced me to purchase my prints from them, although I have conducted some research into other printing places, and the prices and services they offer.
The nature of my prints means I would like to print them at a dimension of 20 inches by 30 inches in Matte paper. I am undecided yet if I should mount them onto aluminium, or frame them in black frames, but I am sure this will become clearer when I have my meeting with Matthew Andrew on Friday. In the meantime, I have been looking to different printing specialists, as well as places that sell frames locally as well as online.
Printspace
I have had experiences from Printspace in the past, and have heard many good reviews from them as a company. The also print the size that I require at a reasonable price. As well as printing, they offer a mounting and framing service, both of which I am torn between at the moment. As noted below on one of the screenshot, printing takes 2 days, and a few extra days for delivery, so means that I have plenty of time to finish my project and get them printed.
DS Colour Labs
I have bought prints from DS Colour Labs previously, the most recent being my printed portfolio for Professional Frameworks. The professionalism of them as a company is next to non, and I have never been disappointed with the prints they produce. At the moment, they are my number one choice for my prints for my final major exhibition, but this could change as I order sample packs and read more reviews on different printing companies. They also print the size that I am planning to print, and also offer mounting services, with printing on aluminium being an option.
Poster prints is what they call large format prints that they produce. These are slightly cheaper than prints from the Printspace, but only by about £5 so it is negligible. The only problem with DS Colour Lab is they do not offer Matte printing, only 4 types of Satin and 1 type of Ultra Pearl. Their production time is 1-3 days, so the same time as Printspace, and the aluminium printing option is also available. Therefore, I need to conduct some more research into different types of paper and what would work best for me.
Printing on a canvas is something I have not thought about, and think it looks slightly unprofessional, but was interesting to see how much it would be to print at the size I require.
Ikea
Although this frame would not work with my series, as it would be too distracting, but it had made me think about the concept of having an alternative frame, rather than a normal black or white frame.
The Range
I have bought frames from the Range before, most recently for my exhibition at Darwen Library, I have always been impressed with the price paired with the quality. I am going to visit the Range tomorrow to see frames in the size of 20 inches by 30 inches to see if there are any available that are of good enough quality, and made out of wood rather than plastic.
Amazon: The Frame Company
This is the frame I have been mostly interested in so far, and the reviews say that the quality of the product is next to none. The frames look professional, and also come in five different colours; black, white, beech, dark wood and silver. At the moment, I plan to purchase black frames as I feel that it would look more professional.
I plan to write another blog post as to how I plan to print my final images!
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