The work aims to propose a new type of structure design and study the flexural deflection of printing cylinder. From the structure design of printing drum layers, rules on flexural deflection of regular printing cylinder were studied. The structure design method of variable stiffness printing cylinder was presented. The deflection and the quality changes between regular printing cylinder and variable stiffness printing cylinder were analyzed. The maximum deflection of 1.85 m and 1.05 m regular printing cylinders were 0.052 mm and 0.0181 mm, respectively; the growth of deflection was 49.4% and 52.5%, respectively. After considering gravity, the decline of deflection of 1.85 m and 1.05m variable stiffness printing cylinder was 23% and 21%, respectively. Compared with regular printing cylinder, the decline of quality was 16.3% and 9.9%. Variable stiffness printing cylinder can avoid the casting defect of regular printing cylinder on restriction of printing performance, and control quality of cylinder effectively, while significantly reduce the deflection.