Taws Can Do

I rarely write reviews anymore so this is really a testament to how horrible the service was here.
Firstly the hospitality was non existent. In both the times I was here, to drop off and pick up my order, I did not receive a smile or any kind of helpful attitude. I was regarded with hostility by the three different employees I interacted with (a redheaded woman, a blonde woman and an older man) the other employees just ignored my presence altogether even as I waited for someone to help me.
My project was small I admit and I don’t know the first thing about printing. I was in desperate need of guidance but unfortunately I received no help whatsoever, even after asking for help choosing a type of paper.
I called to check on my order after they said they would call me and lo and behold it was finished. I guess they didn’t have time or inclination to give me the call I was promised. They told me without apology that the printer had been «set to enlarge» by accident and they had already printed on the last of the particular kind of paper I desired. Okay… not only did I not get an apology or a discount, they didn’t even try to offer a suggestion. For instance, the paper I choose was one shade of many, they could have easily offered to reprint on another color. But not, they’ve been beyond unhelpful so far so why would they demonstrate common courtesy this late in the game?
I go to pick up my project, just glad to be through with these people. The blonde woman gets my order and brings it to the register where she says something like «They clapped it but didn’t push through». I have no idea what this means. I ask her what she means and she just repeated herself twice more without eye contact. After observing what she’s holding I realize she means that they have written down my credit card information but not actually charged it. I say, I still need to pay and she tells me to wait for «him to come up and do it.» without explaining who he is… so I say, «Oh would it be possible for you to ring me up?» I mean, she’s an employee, she’s standing at the register… I might add that there are two other people working without a couple feet of her who seem entirely unconcerned. She responds with «I don’t do register» and walks away. Great! icing on the cake.
Eventually the redhead wanders up and says «What?» like I’m intruding upon her by wanting to pay. I paid and got out of there as quickly as possible and vowed to write a Unilocal review. I am beyond surprised to find myself saying this, but screw this business, go to Fex Ex across the street. I always choose the locally owned business over the corporation when I have the chance and this was such a huge disappointment. These people made it clear every second that they interacted with me that i was not a valued customer and that they could care less about my feelings and my project.
Maybe it’s because I’m a waitress so hospitality is how I pay my rent, but this was absurd in the level of rudeness I experienced. I felt like I was in a foreign country with manners that were completely contradictory to everything I know. They should really be ashamed. And aside from the customer service to have screwed up my order and not apologized or offered a discount… I mean really? How do they stay in business?

This place is by far the best printing spot in the city. They bend over backwards to satisfy their customers. And not only is their service extremely quick and thoughtfully executed — you can tell they really enjoy what they do. Everyone in that office was extremely kind and helpful. I was really happy to do business with TAWS!!! And plan on returning again soon!

This place was such a huge help to me with printing my wedding invitations! Some of the Unilocal reviews freaked me out a bit, but I was glad we stayed the course. I especially want to give a big shout out to Kim, who was great to work with and (patiently) answered all of my questions.
I bought the design template from an Etsy artist with the grand idea that I would cut the things myself. And then I realized how insane of an undertaking that would be to cut 100 info cards, invitations, and RSVP cards. Ain’t nobody got time for that.
I’ve never taken anything to a print shop, so I really had no clue what to ask for. They really made the process easy, though. When they showed me the initial proof, I liked it, but I felt like something was missing. They helped us pick out a better paper and it really tied the whole thing together. They were decently quick with the whole thing, too. I started working with these guys about a week ago and once we finally settled on the proof, they had the stuff printed in less than 24 hours.
I was also impressed by how cheap it was to print these suckers. I’ve heard of people spending thousands of dollars on wedding invitations (side note: those people are crazy). I really think we got a quality product for a fraction of the cost. I can’t wait to mail these bad boys out!

I am not sure I have ever encountered such horrible customer service at a small printing business in my life. Please send your employees, especially Dov, to a customer service training course. You are supposed to greet people as they walk in the door, not confront them with a hostile attitude. As a potential new customer I left thinking that if the competence level was anything like the customer service– the work was going to be horrible.

Friday afternoon. Buzzards circle. A tumbleweed rolls past in the office. The email comes in. We need a vinyl banner, like, yesterday. Panicked, I laid out the design and emailed it over to Taws.
Not only were they super helpful on the phone, but they managed to get the banner done (with grommets!) the same day and didn’t charge me a rush fee. The staff was courteous and easygoing. For a Friday emergency, they saved my bacon.

F**K Every Other Printer I went to (Staples, Blick Art Supplies, Marathon, FEDEX, UPS Store South Street) for the attitudes and general ignorance. I had to endure so much nonsense to get my sketch printed onto Yupo… I never seen so many excuses… I’m just convinced people don’t like money in this City. Thanks Taws!

WORST PRINTERS IN THE CITY! STAY AWAY! Totally botched our wedding invitations. The color was off big time, it was printed off center and the edges were super rough. Went back to them and they wanted to charge me to fix it and would not refund me. They basically stole my money. Avoid this place and spend your money else where. They are unprofessional, miserable people with no concept of customer service.

I want to be charitable, but I have to agree with the posters who have said that this place is all talk, no action. I spent several hours over the course of two weeks with Bear on an estimate for my wedding invitations and after four promises that he would «email me the estimate by the end of the day» resulting in nothing, I stopped hearing from him altogether on the estimate. This was a fairly simple job which I’d brought to them with plenty of time to complete and they just wasted about 6 weeks of my time– meaning I’m now on a really tight deadline to complete my project.
I don’t know why they would do this … it’s really bad business. I hate to post a negative review but think that people should be aware of this. If they can’t take the business (or don’t want it) it would be a much better use of everyone’s time to just say no, thank you.
Sorry Taws, based on my experience, you Can’t Do!

I was extremely unhappy with the service I received. Order initially took an hour to place, and was returned a day later than I was told it would be ready. They also wouldn’t show me a proof of the print even though I requested one, and used the wrong binding color. On top of all that, the pricing was outrageously expensive.
Very much do not recommend this print shop.

Taws can NOT do. Avoid this place at all costs. I had a horrible experience here.
We took our favorite canvas painting here to be re-​stretched. They talked me into «gator board» as a lighter, cheaper option, which actually just involved taping it to a piece of foam board for $ 80. Somehow, this took two weeks.
Once I got it home, I saw that a) they had scratched the painting b) they had hung it upside down. Back to the store, where they admitted their mistake and offered to fix it with removable wax. Ok fine, appreciate the effort. Except that made it the defect worse, and they couldn’t remove the «removable» wax.
Now our favorite painting is bruised forever. They gave us a refund and offered to pay to send it back to the artist to fix, but we don’t want to ship it across the country again and risk it getting more damaged in the process. To top it all off, one of the owners made inappropriate comments about my gym shorts and my teenage sisters’ weight. INAPPROPRIATE.
Now several months later, the painting is starting to wrinkle on the gatorboard because it is not actually stretched. We’re going to Blick for wood stretchers and reasonable humans.

Working with Taws was one the best decisions we made for our wedding. They did our save-​the-​date cards, save-​the-​date magnets and our wedding invitations, and we couldn’t be happier with the whole experience.
Wedding planning can be scary. And wedding invitations can be really cookie-​cutter — really dull. It’s hard to find creative, fun designs in the huge thick invitation sample books at most traditional paper/​printing places. But after we designed our own invitations, we found that it was even harder to find a printing place that would help us design our own and do a flawless printing job.
Taws did that!
We worked with Sam, and she made wedding-​invitation-​making easy (now THAT’s hard to do). Taws was super-​consistent and really responsive. They answered all our questions, printed samples for us, helped us choose between paper and design options, and never took more than 24 hours to respond to an email. Their patience was infinite — we changed our mind a few times, asked for more proofs, sent them new versions of everything — and they never missed a beat. The best part: they’re fun people! We felt really comfortable with them and they were super friendly. If there were any problems with the printing, they made the fixes their top priority and executed them flawlessly (within a few hours!). They really made our lives easier.
Our save-​the-​dates and invitations were a huge hit with friends and family, and it’s hard to imagine working with any other printer — it pretty much wouldn’t have been possible. Thank you Taws!

Two disclaimers: First, this review is based on a single experience. All of the following interactions took place with the same man, I believe his name was Dov. He is the one who works in the front. Second, the painting in question is like a member of my family, and I’m way too emotionally attached to it to be objective.
That said, my experience with Taws Can Do! was the worst commercial experience I’ve ever had. They took three weeks to do a one day job, scratched my painting, hung it upside down despite specific instructions and made two inappropriate comments to female customers. I know they must do better with other customers or they wouldn’t be able to stay in business.
I joined Unilocal just to post this review. I fear for other customers using Taws Can Do! I know Unilocal users care about different things, so the specifics of my experience are below so you can tell if this review applies to what you care about.
I just moved cross country, so I had a 3′ x 3′ painting unstretched and shipped. Arriving in Philadelphia, Taws Can Do! was right on my new block so I brought it to them to restretch. The close location was ideal to me because I’m uncomfortable transporting the painting for fear of damaging it.
I wanted the painting stretched on a wood frame, but Dov pressured me into gatorboard. The painting is abstract, so I specified that the painting should be hung such that the blue part goes at the top.
I brought the painting in on a Monday and Dov said it would be ready later in the week and he would call me. The next Monday, having received no call, I went back and Dov said he would do it that day and call me. That Friday, having received no call, I went back and Dov told me it’d be ready early the next week. This is where I screwed up. I should have taken the painting back and had it stretched elsewhere. I regret this mistake horribly.
The next Tuesday, my fiancée got a call that the painting was ready, so she picked it up and was charged $ 93. Dov made an inappropriate remark about her sundress. The painting was covered in paper, so she couldn’t see it when she picked it up. She brought the painting home, laid it face up on the carpet in our apartment and removed the paper covering. There was a 2.5″ scratch running across the painting.
When I returned home, I was devastated to see the scratch. I was also frustrated that the painting is merely taped to the gatorboard with 4 pieces of tape. I’m not sure why that costs $ 93. The painting had also been set up to hang upsidedown, despite my specific instructions about which way was up.
I brought the painting back to Taws Can Do! Dov admitted that the scratch had not been present when he stretched the painting, but that it had been caused by the person who covered the painting in paper. Dov took the painting so he could set it to hang the right way. He seemed genuinely horrified by the scratch and wanted to try to fix it.
When we went to pick up the painting, it looked like it had been bruised. Dov had applied wax to cover the scratch, but the color and surface of the painting were affected horribly. Dov said he could take the wax off, refund our money and give us back the painting or he could keep trying to fix the scratch. We opted for the former. Dov also made an inappropriate remark about my 17 year old sister-in-law’s weight.
Finally, I went to pick up the painting once and for all. The gatorboard piece that was glued on to hang the painting with had not been cut well or sanded at all and I cut myself badly on both hands handling it. Dov was unable to get all the wax off the painting and the shine and streaking of the wax is still visible, stretching extensively beyond the bounds of the original scratch.
Taws Can Do! did give us our money back, though the damage of the scratch is permanent and devastating. Dov also offered to pay the shipping if we wanted to ship the painting back to the artist in Seattle to try to fix it. I haven’t yet taken him up on that offer because I’m not ready to let the painting out of my sight and I’m too embarrassed to admit to the artist that the painting has been scratched.
As I was leaving, Dov suggested the scratch could have been our fault and not his. Then he said his brother told him to tell me «shit happens.»

My husband and I used Taws to print our wedding thank you cards. My first tip off that this would be a bad experience should have been the first email I received from Taws. After filling out their online price request form, I received a message as follows: UGH! DON’T SEE PDF!!! How is that in any way professional?
Because we wanted to use a local printer for our thank you cards to expedite things, we decided to overlook this email snafu and go with Taws. I went over very specifically and in person what paper we wanted, the envelopes, pretty standard stuff. When we received a sample of the card, it was folded in half lopsided and the crease looked completely mangled, as if a kindergartener had folded it. When I expressed concerns over this, the same woman who’d sent the initial email sent a very terse email back basically saying I was an idiot for not knowing that a sample would look worse than the real deal. First of all, I’m not in the printing business and she is. How would I know? Secondly, it’s not so unreasonable to expect a sample to be a replica of the final product, especially when it’s just a folded card! She assured me the final cards would go through a special machine to be folded and creased professionally.
Well, imagine my shock and disgust when we received our final cards folded EXACTLY as that horrible sample! Luckily, my polite and quiet husband picked up the cards because if I had been there, I would have flipped out. We had to talk to this nasty, horrible woman again about the cards being unacceptable and she offered no apology or explanation. Finally, another employee came over and said they’d put in a new order free of charge.
I picked up the new order and was met with total disdain from this woman. She simply let me stand around and would not help me even though she was just a few feet away. I had to approach someone else to ring me up! Please note, neither my husband nor I ever caught an attitude with her, although it would have been within our rights to. She was just a disgusting person from start to finish.
As long as Taws keeps this employee around, they will lose business. I’d never set foot in there again.

I had a great experience with Taws. Bear took me through the process of printing our wedding invitations from beginning to end, and I am so happy with the results.
The thing with printing, as Bear put it, is that «everything is a custom order.» Taws is great because they consult with you to realize an end product that works within your budget. They take the time to educate you on all the different selections and processes that go into your order, so you can make an informed decision. DISCLOSURE: This actually requires interaction on the part of the customer — people are not mind readers (especially when it comes to custom creative work).
TIP: If you’d like an order rushed, make sure to keep checking in with them so that they keep it top of mind.
I found Bear, Dov, and the whole crew at Taws to be friendly, competent and a pleasure to deal with. Thanks BEAR!

The worst job, customer service and end result imaginable. They ruined the rest of our card stock by printing it all crooked. Then the inked-​up our envelopes and, finally, overcharged us. Avoid this effing place as if your life (or even only your wedding invitations) depended on it!

Despite all of the good reviews of Taws (which surprise me) the horrible experience I had here was what prompted me to finally sign up for a Unilocal account and warn innocent customers who might venture here for their printing services.
1. They have terrible customer service. While initially they were warm and helpful, as their mistakes increased they became rude, unapologetic, and condescending.
2. When I carefully discussed my order with them to ensure that we could save paper and money– the price quotes ended up being totally inaccurate as you will find below.
3. They did not even give me an invoice when I placed my order. Then later gave me attitude when I did not have a check at the ready. When I called them back and asked them why I wasn’t given an invoice until now– they said they could not give me one until the job was done– well how to you expect anyone to have a company check on hand when you haven’t even given them an invoice? I assumed that similar to other businesses we deal with, we would be billed and send a check accordingly.
4. They say they have a 24 hour turnaround– that is compete bull. Even if your staff member in charge of a project has a medical emergency, a real professional would make sure their work is covered in a timely fashion. Especially since a lot of printing can be time sensitive. My project was delayed 2 or 3 days and they also did not communicate with me about the issue. Their customer service representative gave me false reassurance that our job would be complete on Monday morning, and it was not done until late Tuesday afternoon after multiple phone calls checking on the job.
5. When I saw the invoice, it was inexplicably almost $ 200 more than they quoted me. I did not understand why they needed double the paper and double the print work on a job. I specifically did my measurements so that I could print something 4 to a page for 200 copies– thus using 50 sheets. They told me that they would resize the file without problem – but then they did not resize the file, and printed 2 to a page and did not even tell me. They then charged me for 100 sheets and I wasn’t even aware of it until I got the invoice. When I questioned them about it, they said they normally wouldnt print anything without someone signing off on it– and i did sign off on it… but they changed their workplan & number of pages being used without even telling me.
6. I also have to question their ability to read because when I told them I needed something printed on the FRONT of an envelope in the top left hand corner for a return address, they printed it on the back flap of the envelope… when i specifically saw the customer service rep WRITE OUT THAT ITS IN THE UPPER LEFT CORNER. THEY ARE SO INCOMPETENT.
While I admit some of the problems that occurred (like not having payment ready because they never gave me an invoice) could have been avoided had I known better… I must say that as a business they could have done a LOT better.
Never in my life have I ever encountered so many problems with a printing company and I have completed many larger jobs in the past for different organizations.

Taws Can Do is the best place to go in Philadelphia for all your printing needs. I have been doing business with them for years. They are your go to guys. Thanks for being so good to us here at Breslow Partners!

Ehh. Only okay. Taws Can Do (Better)!

I’m still new to Unilocal,and feel kinda bad for ripping on this vendor even though the other reviewer gave them 5 stars. But hey, that’s what Unilocal is for, right?
Now to voice my opinion about Taws… oh where do I start?
Well I am the head of marketing for a local Center City company and I get to select which print vendor we use for our projects. Our old office used to be located across the street from Taws so that seemed to be an easy choice. We started there and had all of our printing business going through them. THAT DID NOT LAST LONG.
One mistake after another and poor customer service followed by worse customer service resulted in my determination to find a new vendor in the city. I had seriously endured probably a handful of mistakes on their end which were not remedied easily at all. So one weekend, on my own time as I was running errands in the city, I stopped by another print vendor and the rest of this story I will save for my review on this print vendor that we immediately switched all of our business to: The Printer’s Place at 16^th & Walnut
I felt like there was hope from what had previously been a PIA part of my job where I did not look forward to the risk involved on my projects due to their mistakes!
I could go on and on about how good the Printer’s Place is, but I will write up my own review on them for that info… stay tuned!
IN CONCLUSION: DO NOT GO TO TAWS!
(yikes, I still feel bad about being so harsh)

(Previously Taws) I used Bear Leis at Taws after being recommended by my graphic designer Meei Ling Ng (
). Taws printed my brochures and the service was fairly priced and Bear and his crew had incredibly fast turnaround time on my job. I liked that I was able to stop in a see physical proofs instead of getting a PDF from an online printer. The paper is quality and the colors were sharp.