According to the form of print or information holder we can create a typology of printing techniques. The first forms of print are known to have existed in pre-historic and ancient times. Hundreds of printing techniques have been used until present time and new ones are being developed. The majority of older techniques are abandoned and are used only as artistic graphic forms or as means of protection against counterfeiting.

Conventional print techniques

Conventional analogue printing techniques include those which use a fixed, unchangeable, material print form. According to the positions and roles of print and non-print elements we can divide them into the following categories:

High print
Print elements are convex, non-print elements are concave. The print, print elements are priorly coloured, is done directly to the print material.
Book print with a print form made of metal or hard photopolymer material is today used mostly for printing labels.
Blind print is a sub-type of bookprint (according to the actual application it can also be used as a sub-type of deep print). Blind print uses information, and the image is then printed onto a re-designed relief surface, without using print colour.
Hot print is a sub-type of book print. It uses special foils of pigment layers instead of printing colour. The print is done using a metal printing form, heated to a high working temperature (approx. 130 degrees celsius).
Flexo print is a sub-type of book print, which uses soft photopolymer relief printing form and fluid printing colours. It is used mostly for printing packaging material (paper, foils, waveboard carton) but it is used also for printing cartons and other artefacts.

Flat print
Print and non-print elements of the printing form are situated on the same flat and are divided only by surface properties: oleophillity of the print elements and oleophobia or hydrophillia of the non-print elements. Print is primarily done on an intermediate rubber cylinder and only then is the printing colour transferred onto the print material.
Offset print is a technique of indirect wet flat print by which we use the technique of dampening the printing form to protect non-print elements from colouring. It is the most widely-spread conventional print technique.
Dry offset print is a technique where dampening of the non-print elements is not necessary as it has a thin silicon oleophobic layer over it.

Deep print
Concaves are print elements – alveoles on a smooth surface of a metal or photopolymer printing form. An image is created by cleaning the non-print elements of the coloured printing form and the left-over colour is printed on the printing material. Printing on paper and foils can be done directly, while printing on artefacts require indirect pad print.