Blueprints are essential to plan and strategize an engineering or architectural project. The highly descriptive name of these schematics leaves many people seeking blueprint services in Tampa to wonder. Why are blueprints blue?
Blueprint Services in Tampa Bay
Print the backbone of your engineering or architectural project with the best blueprint service in Tampa Bay at LDI Printing & Signs.
Printing these highly important documents is both a science and an art form. As a result, blueprint services in Tampa Bay are not all the same. LDI Printing & Signs is the leading blueprint services and construction drawing printer, using industry-leading digitally generated bond prints to reproduce your Tampa Bay project plans.
LDI printed products ensure that you can send your design to a builder or construction team with confidence. These printouts are precise and professional. We offer quality blueprint services in Tampa Bay to produce large-format prints. Illustrating your plans, so you can envision and accurately carry out your project.
The Origin of the Blueprint
The replication of documents, though easy today, was a time-consuming and tedious task that had to be conducted by hand. The blueprint services available to you in Tampa Bay have advanced a long way from those originally created by English photographer and chemist, John Herschel.
Herschel discovered that a chemical reaction and subsequent compound called blue ferric ferrocyanide occurred when combining ferric ammonium citrate and potassium ferricyanide. In simple terms, this chemical reaction could be used to 
reproduce documents in a similar fashion to the reproduction of the film.
From there, a process called cyanotype was adopted. A drawing is created, traced onto vellum paper, and then saturated in an ammonium potassium mixture, and finally, it’s dried. Once the dried paper is exposed to bright light, a transformation occurs. The paper turns Prussian blue due to the blue ferric ferrocyanide. This process was much less costly than the manual reproduction of documents and was quickly embraced by engineers and architects.
Modern-Day Blueprints
Today, digital blueprint services make this process easier, but the blue hue remains on many blueprints. Computer Assisted Design (CAD) drawings have greatly simplified the act of creating blueprints and construction drawings, as has a process called diazo—whiteprinting—where the images are a positive, rather than a representation of a negative image. Photocopiers and the whiteprint process have largely replaced the cyanotype process, but the name and color often remain in modern blueprint services in Tampa Bay.
Find the best of blueprint services in Tampa Bay at LDI Printing & Signs. Trust that your reproductions will be completed with accuracy and quality. Thus resulting in project plans that stand the test of use on-site. From scanning to CAD plotting, LDI Printing & Signs offers unmatched blueprint services with advanced digital software and professional printers in the Tampa Bay area. For more information on our services, visit us online or call us at 727-573-9070.
