‘Printers Continue to Dig Their Own Graves’ —Michelson

THAT WAS the subject line of an insightful e-mail I received recently from Tim Rolfsen, president of Indianapolis-based Vista Graphic Communications. Rolfsen felt the need to vent about the ridiculously low prices that printers often charge just to get the sale. "There seems to be a new formula for determining the price of a job: material cost times (x) two. Regardless of the effort that goes into producing jobs—whether it's several signatures that need to print, fold and stitch, or complex diecutting and hand work—printers seems to think that living with 50 percent or less value-add is acceptable," he wrote.