Behind the Scenes: A Day at Personalised Printed Ribbons

Ever wondered what happens after you place an order for personalised ribbon?

We’ve been printing ribbon since 2007, and although the equipment and technology have changed considerably over the years, much of what we do still comes down to real people checking artwork, choosing ribbon, printing Your Order, inspecting the finished result and packing it ready to leave us.

Here’s a little look behind the scenes at a typical day with our ribbon printing team in Essex.

The Morning Starts With the Orders

Our working day changes throughout the year. During particularly busy periods we may start early, work late or come in over the weekend to keep orders moving.

The first job is to see what’s ahead.

We go through the day’s orders together, checking what needs printing, what is awaiting artwork approval, which orders are urgent and whether there are any unusual jobs that need a little more thought.

We work closely together, so although the morning catch-up is short, the conversation continues throughout the day.

Choosing Your Ribbon

Once an order is ready for production, the correct ribbon and printing materials need to be selected.

We keep a large stock of ribbon in our Essex premises, including around 50 colours of satin ribbon for our personalised single-colour printing range.

Every order is different. One job might be 10mm ribbon printed for wedding favours, while the next could be wider ribbon carrying a company logo for hundreds of presentation boxes.

That’s one of the things we enjoy about what we do — you never quite know what’s going to be on the printing bench next.

Before We Print: Your Visual Proof

Before Your Ribbon goes into production, our artwork team checks the design and prepares a visual proof.

We look at the logo or wording, ribbon width, print size, spacing and the colours you’ve selected.

If we think something could work better — perhaps the logo needs adjusting or the print colour doesn’t provide enough contrast against the ribbon — we’ll talk to you about it before printing.

Your visual proof gives you the opportunity to check the design, layout and spelling before we proceed.

Then It’s Time to Print

We use different printing processes depending on the type of ribbon and artwork ordered.

Much of our personalised satin ribbon is produced using our fast single-colour printing process, with a choice of matt and metallic print finishes.

For multi-coloured logos, photographs, detailed designs and colour-matched ribbon, we also offer full-colour printing.

We’ve been printing ribbon since 2007, so our team has seen just about every combination of ribbon, logo, wording and colour imaginable.

Some combinations are particularly satisfying when they come off the printer — and there’s still usually someone nearby being summoned to look when an especially good one appears.

Quality Checking Your Ribbon

Printing is only part of the job.

Your Ribbon is checked during production and checked again as it is prepared for packing.

We’re looking at the print itself, the ribbon and the overall finished appearance before Your Order leaves us.

Because the people packing the orders work alongside the people printing them, if something doesn’t look right it can be raised immediately rather than simply being put into a box.

Packing Your Order

Once printing and checking are complete, Your Order moves to packing.

We choose packaging suitable for the size and type of order and protect the ribbon so it reaches you ready to use.

Where practical, we reuse suitable packaging and try to avoid unnecessary packing materials.

Once the parcel has been prepared for collection, tracking information is sent so you can follow its journey from us to you.

Your Dedicated Contact

One of the things we have deliberately kept as the business has grown is personal contact.

You’re not simply an order number moving through a production system.

Your Order is handled by people who can answer questions about your artwork, ribbon, printing and delivery. If something needs discussing, you’ll deal with someone who understands what you’re ordering and can speak directly to the people producing it.

We also keep artwork from previous orders on file, which makes life much easier for customers who return to order the same ribbon again.

Customers Who Come Back Year After Year

Some of our favourite orders are the ones where we recognise the customer before we’ve even opened the artwork.

We have customers who have ordered from us for many years, and we’ve even had customers take us with them when they’ve moved from one company to another.

For us, that’s one of the best measures of the service we provide.

We’re equally happy printing a small order for somebody’s wedding or celebration as we are producing ribbon for a major brand, marketing agency or repeat corporate customer.

The People Behind Your Ribbon

Personalised Printed Ribbons is a family business, and we’ve been working together since 2007.

There are busy days, strange requests, last-minute deadlines and occasionally a very long Christmas shift — but there are also plenty of laughs along the way.

And yes, there are dogs.

Customer feedback is shared with the team because every finished order has normally passed through several pairs of hands before it leaves us. From the person preparing the artwork to the person printing, checking and packing it, everyone has contributed to the finished ribbon.

From Our Printing Bench to Your Order

When you order from Personalised Printed Ribbons, your ribbon isn’t being passed anonymously through a distant fulfilment centre.

It’s being artworked, printed, checked and packed by our team here in Essex.

We’ve been doing it since 2007 — and we still enjoy seeing what our customers ask us to print next.

CREATE YOUR PERSONALISED RIBBON