Ryan Norbauer

Review of AMP Printing, Inc.

Although everyone that I dealt with at AMP was fri...

Although everyone that I dealt with at AMP was friendly, unfortunately I simply had to pay for and throw out the nearly $11,000 of printed product they made for me due it not being made to spec and their having zero interest in fixing it.

I specified a Pantone ink color match (one of the most standard processes in the printing industry), which was critical so that all of my printed materials and packaging match perfectly. The ink drawdown sample they sent me as a pre-production proof was already not an excellent match (a bit too dark), but then the production color deviated even further from that (darker still), such that what was supposed to be a light pink came out a deep orange salmon color. After raising the issue, showing them comparison photos (see below), and explaining that I was not going to be able to use the product because of the poor match, they shrugged it off. After a lot of pushback and multiple rounds of discussion, they offered me a 9.6% (!) discount on the order, citing that I had not protested about the already-bad drawdown match and suggesting that production color was "within tolerance" (unspecified metric) of that approved drawdown, while still acknowledging that it wasn't even a good match for that. I was very unimpressed by their lack of interest in my experience as a client, instead recoursing to the technicality that I hadn't complained about the bad drawdown match and saying that bad production match to the drawdown was effectively "close enough" to that. Look at the images below in natural light and judge for yourself. Needless to say, this isn't how it's supposed to work. When one specifies and pays for a Pantone spot color match, one expects it to be exact. That is, after all, the whole point of the system.

The color issue was so bad I had to throw away all the product. So much for more than $10,000.