Print runs with slight variations

The short answer: no. :-(

At least that would be appliable to most cases. Usually, white equals unprinted paper, so changing the white company name/logo would mean changing the printing area, wich means new plates, which means a new printing run.

You mention blue ink, but I'm not sure you really mean blue ink, or rather a blue colored background. If your board uses other colors in other areas, it's very likely that it's printed as process color, or CMYK color, which consists of four basic inks (cyan, magenta, yellow and black) mixed in different proportions to acheive different colors. If that's the case, blue is usually composed of lots of cyan and some magenta, possibly yellow and/or black for darker shades blue.

This means your blue might be composed of all four inks, thus a change of the company name would mean a change in all four inks. That's pretty much like each board is a completely different work for the pinter (except for a few details).

If your blue is (or can be) composed, say, of just cyan and magenta, that's good news for you. That would mean yellow and black remain the same, so you have at least some saving in those films/plates. Bigger savings might exist, depending of the press your printer has. In most cases, four color jobs are printed in four color presses. That means a big machine coposed by four presses, one for each color, set in line, so that the paper comes in white, and comes out as the finished print. But smaller printing companies might have a two color (or even a one color) press to produce your board. If this were your case, and the blue is just cyan and magenta, your printer can handle your boards as two two-color jobs: one 25.000 run in yellow and black, and 5 5.000 runs of cyan and magenta. Some issues might prevent you from doing this, but some printers will be willing to handle it this way. It's mostly up to the equipment he has (and a bit about his attitude too).

OTOH, if your blue is really just blue ink, a change in the company name would mean a change of the printing job. Unless you can print 25.000 boards with no company name, then print the company name in white ink (there is white ink too, but it's usually more complex to print in white over a dark color like blue, inks tend to be translucent, so you might need to print the white twice to fully cover the background). You should talk to your printer about this, some options might be cost effective for one printer but not for another.

Finally, you could post a pic of your board here, and maybe we can find an alternative, cost effective solution. Printing the company name in black, for instance, if the blue is not too dark, might be an easier and less expensive solution.

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As noted, if you pick a pure color, then you can change out one plate either cheaply or for free. Sometimes CCG manufacturers make multiple card variations (different flavor text) by swapping out the black plate for a new black plate.

I'd suggest you pick a CMYK that is a pure variant of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, or Black. Any variant you are happy with should do, just don't mix multiple pigments. That will result in multiple plate changes for different colors.

No matter what you do, talk to your printer about these plate changes (even if there are multiple changes) instead of doing 5 separate print runs. It will almost definitely be cheaper for you. At least some of the films and the plates will be the same between runs.

Yep, the six-color press and overprinting the company name in a second black (or another color, as long as it prints over the rest, without knock-offs) will be the best option.

If you can leave a white area somewhere on the board for the company name, you'll be able to choose any color. Yet you'll rather use the same color for all five variations, or else the printer would be forced to clean the press after each color change, thus increasing your costs.

Gee, how didn't I thought of a six-color press. :-/
Hatts off to Matthew. :-)

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