The Printer

After searching all over the bay area for a printer I could trust, I decided to go with The Printer in Davis based on their reasonable estimate, Laura’s responsiveness, and the high Unilocal reviews here. I drove up to Davis from Petaluma, gave them my project on a flash drive, and discussed my options: paper, cover stock, and sizes. Their electronic prepress expert, Mark, invited me to sit in his office with him to go through the files I sent for printing and help catch any errors I may have made. (Caught a big one there, too! Whew!)
The whole team knew I was on a very tight deadline, and my oversized book had special concerns, but Laura and Howard reassured me that they could do it right and ship the boxes of books to the East Coast in time for the book convention where the books were debuting. I visited a second time to inspect the hard proofs for errors with a high-​powered loupe they provided – and caught many more tiny mistakes – all my fault. So I rushed back home and spent all night making corrections to the files, and digitally uploaded them all to Mark. He was great. The files all checked out, and was ready to print!
But would the book be printed in time to ship to the East Coast without costing me a fortune?
Before I saw a single printed book, Laura shipped the first books that came off the press; the boxes went east. When the rest of the books were finished, I drove back to Davis.
The books turned out so beautifully! I’m about as nit-​picky as a book designer can get (and have driven more than one printer mad in the past), but Howard and team did a marvelous job with the offset registration, the inks, colors, cover varnish, binding, and printed a nice poster too! The whole team really bent over backward for me, and I’m grateful. The books arrived on time, and were a huge hit. Many book professionals there remarked how beautiful and professional the book looked and felt. It was well worth the multiple drives to Davis to work with The Printer. This Unilocal review is the least I can do to show my gratitude.

I came here to print a research poster. They did a wonderful job and were very responsive over the phone as well as email. Very nice customer service.

Saving my butt with some last minute prints. Very friendly and helpful! Unilocaling now before my first print even — that’s how cool this place is:).

I went here because I wanted a perfect print job for my Fashion Design Portfolio and I have had extremely bad service multiple times at the Fed Ex in downtown Davis. I brought in a flash drive with a PDF of my portfolio (which was so big I had to break it up into multiple files). They were quick and efficient, took the files and said it would be done within a few hours. I was nervous because this was my portfolio and the transaction was so fast, but when I went in to pick it up, they had done a beautiful job. The colors translated perfect, and the print quality was exceptional. They are a bit pricey, but you get what you pay for. The Printer is friendly, efficient and have excellent quality. Highly recommend.

I needed business cards, notecards for thank you notes with matching envelopes, and business stationery for my consulting business. I’m a one man shop that works with startups in the Bay Area.
I tried Zazzle (unhappy with their quality) and visited the normal print shops in Davis like FedEx Kinkos. None of these seemed like they had the quality or design skills I needed. Ergo, my trip to The Printer.
I met with Laura one afternoon to go through what I needed. She was very patient with me (and my 1-​year-​old son I had in tow :-) She produced an itemized quote in just a couple days. The next week, I sat down with Mark (their designer) and in less than an hour, he modified my logo and designed everything I needed.
I ordered everything on Tuesday afternoon and was told «about a week and maybe Friday for the business cards.» Friday afternoon, Laura called to tell me the entire order was finished. Very cool to be mailing out notes and business cards to clients on Saturday.
The quality was very nice. The printing is very sharp, especially on the the envelopes and notecards — so professional. Well worth the time and money investment instead of mucking with online or copy shops.

I came to this print shop with a small print job and was thoroughly impressed with the quick turn-​around time, the excellent quality, and the customer service. The person that I spoke with on the phone and in person when I came for the pick-​up was very friendly and did a great job. Would come back again and highly recommend.