Your printer is looking for answers

1. How many do you need?

Why it’s important: Printers estimate production costs based on the equipment they have. Knowing the quantity determines which press to use, how much paper to buy and how long your project will take to print. It also helps them decide whether it fits their equipment, and whether they should turn down your print job or accept it but have it done elsewhere. (Virtually every printer brokers out work to other companies when they don’t have the equipment to do the job.) If it’s a 500 piece postcard printing, it may be too small for them to print economically.

2. What size is it?

Why it’s important: Are your printing posters or postcards? Printers need to know flat size, finished size and page counts to determine how to fit it on their equipment and how much paper to buy. They also need to know if any of the artwork “bleeds” off the edge of the sheet, since to achieve that effect they must print on a larger sheet and trim it down.

3. How many colors, on how many sides?

Why it’s important: Printing presses come in different sizes and configurations. Digital presses are either one color or four colors. Offset presses can be one, two, four, five, six, eight or ten colors, depending how the print company invested their money. The printer wants to produce your project as economically as possible, so will fit it onto the piece of equipment they own that works best (or broker it with another company).

4. What paper do you want?

Why it’s important: Paper can be a big cost variable in your budget, particularly if you are producing many copies (like you would for a catalog printing). It also needs to be appropriate for the print quality you expect. Be thoughtful about this decision, and ask your printer for advice. They may use a “house stock” that they buy at quantity discounts, runs well on their equipment, and is easy to source quickly.

5. How will you be supplying artwork?

Why it’s important: If you don’t have artwork, chances are the printer can come up with something serviceable, but probably not pretty (some printers are exceptions to this). If you supply artwork that was created in any Adobe software program and have some experience creating print-ready files, you should be fine. If you are using any Microsoft software, there is no such thing as a print-ready file. The printer will have to add production time to fix it.

6. What bindery work is needed?

Why it’s important: A lot of production planning goes into this. Does it trim, score, saddle stitch, perfect bind, die cut or foil stamp? These requirements determine how the job is set up coming out of prepress and onto the printing press, to make sure that the finishing work can be done efficiently, or meets the requirements of the outside bindery.

7. When do you need them?

Why it’s important: Firstly, the printer needs to know what your your expectations are. Secondly, they need to know if they can fit it into their regular production flow or rearrange existing production schedules (and possibly add overtime/weekend crews if you didn’t allow enough time to print it cost-effectively).

Those seven questions answer the basic information any printer needs to know before they can accurately estimate production costs and schedules. The following questions are ones they should also be asking to help them do their job more effectively – and their job is to make your job easier.

8. How are these being used?

Why it’s important: Unless you’ve been a print buyer that has approved blueline proofs, chances are your printer has a lot more experience than you. They can offer constructive input on better production options that can cut costs, help the serviceability and improve the tactile feel of your printed piece.

9. How are these being distributed?

Why it’s important: Maybe they can help you navigate new postal regulations. Maybe you forgot that your printer now offers in house mailing services, and now you realize that they can cut three days off your total production schedule. Maybe their suggestion to shrink wrap the carton of booklets drop shipping to Timbuktu will help your shipment survive the UPS torture test relatively unscathed.

10. Are there other pieces that coordinate with this project?

Why it’s important: Is this brochure part of a series of brochures, and gee, wouldn’t it be nice if your logo was the same color on all of them? Having samples of the previous printings greatly improves the odds. Maybe printing the covers together for different pieces will improve consistency and cut your costs.

11. Who will be approving the proofs?

Why it’s important: Are the proofs being approved by the VP at headquarters who is traveling for the next two weeks? It helps to track where they’ll be when the proof is done so they can have it ready for them at their next destination, rather than waiting for them to return. I have met clients at the airport and had them sign off on proofs while in the security line in order to make sure the project stayed on schedule.

12. Do you need to see these on press to approve the color?

Why it’s important: If you need to be there on press, the printer needs to know. For one, they usually try to schedule it during the day (although I have slept on printer’s couches overnight – it happens). I have also had situations where critical color instructions were overlooked or ignored by pressmen when I wasn’t there, which is why I still go on press when the project requires.

Printing is still an effective form of communication, but you get the best results when you use effective communication with your printer. I’d love to hear your comments about what happens when the communication breaks down. You can share them below.

This project was a handful (photo by Thomas Duane)

Sometimes I get to create something that’s never been done before. That was the case when the founder of marketing communications firm Neohatch Thomas Duane, along with sports and event marketing agency Woolf Associates, asked me to help produce a 32-page, 32″ wide by 20″ tall flip book for their client FlippSports.

A flip book has pages bound together with slightly different sequential images on each page. As you flip the pages quickly, the images animate and move. FlippSports created a series of these palm-sized books highlighting plays by famous baseball players to sell as collectibles – sort of like a baseball card on steroids.

Photo by Thomas Duane

Woolf Associates, at that point a division of advertising giant Arnold & Company, had lots of experience creating product tie-ins with sports events and stars, including Flutie Flakes cereal. Neohatch also had it’s share of experience with sports marketing, guiding projects like a partnership between Campbell’s Soup and the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association, as well as creating a branding strategy for WBA Heavyweight Champion John Ruiz.  The goal for the giant flip book was to create excitement about the small products by getting the big one listed in the Guinness Book of World Records.

My challenge was to make it work effectively (the pages had to line up perfectly for the animation to work), be durable (to draw people into the FlippSports booth to try it out at public events) and work flipping from both directions. I also had to figure out a way to bind it together, a bit challenging since nobody manufactures a binding method for a coffee table book bigger than a coffee table. (Thanks, Home Depot.)

In one direction the book profiled Nomar Garciaparra of the Boston Red Sox in motion, while the other direction showed Derek Jeter of the New York Yankees. Due to the size, you could only see the animated action when someone else flipped the pages for you. The finished book was a huge success for FlippSports with people lining up in front of their booth at different events for the chance to try flipping the book themselves.

Crowds lined up for a chance to take a flip (photo by Thomas Duane)

Unfortunately, a great promotion didn’t get a large enough group of people to pay $6.00 each for the regular-sized flip books to keep FlippSports in business, although you can still find their products on Ebay. Woolf Associates also disappeared, absorbed into the Arnold Worldwide conglomerate.

I think this girl needed a little help. (photo by Thomas Duane)

Weighing about 25 pounds, it was something you really had to hold to appreciate. I’d love to know where it ended up after FlippSports went belly up. If any of you had a chance to see the book, or know what happened to it, please share your comments here.

Sewing designs into cloth using colored thread dates back over 2,500 years, and it is still popular today. Putting your logo on apparel is one of the best things you can do to promote your organization.

Using embroidered clothing for promotion is called physical advertising. Attractive designs on quality apparel promotes your brand wherever it gets worn, often for years into the future. This is true whether you are giving an item away as a promotion, providing team uniforms or reselling at retail.

Below are two videos showing a visual explanation of the process.

Embroidery involves high speed, computerized machines that sew your design. It is possible to use ten or more colors to create amazing effects. First, your logo is converted into  digitized format using special software that creates a path for each thread to follow. (Sorry about the voice-over on this video – but you get the idea.)

There is generally a one-time charge to digitize your logo, and it is always best to provide your logo in an eps format (created in illustrator or photoshop).  The cost is based on the number of stitches required (generally charged on a per-thousand stitch basis). This file can be used repeatedly on different items as long as the output size is within 10% (larger or smaller) of the original. Adding or changing copy requires a new file.

Every time the needle punches the cloth and then moves to the next position, it is called a “stitch.” A logo sewn above a shirt pocket or on the front of a hat might have nearly 3,000 stitches, while a large logo on the back of a team jacket may have 20,000 or more. It is generally advisable to ask for a sewn out version of your logo on fabric before proceeding with production to ensure that the thread colors and stitching design meet your approval. There is no practical way to “unembroider” any fabric – your only solution is to create a new design or patch big enough to hide the original embroidery by sewing on top of it.

Embroidery is appropriate for the following:

-  small production runs or personalization
-  using the identical logo on various items
-  multiple colors in the logo
-  higher quality perceived value desired
-  textured surfaces (i.e., fleece)

Production limitations of embroidery

-  small type (less than 14pt.) or fine line designs do not reproduce well
-  large designs with many thousands of stitches become costly
-  limitation of thread colors means not all Pantone® Matching System colors are available
-  some lightweight fabrics (i.e., nylon) bunch up and pucker when embroidered

If you are new to purchasing embroidered products, make sure you work with someone who has experience and understands not only the process, but is also willing to ask you about your expectations and will offer constructive input to assist you with products, placement and size. Call us with questions.

Helpful Resources

Downloads:

Convert Pantone colors to available thread colors

Estimate how many stitches are in your logo

Easter eggs in their native habitat

Happy National Egg Salad Day. This holiday traditionally falls on the day after Easter, when your beautifully decorated Easter eggs have suddenly morphed from being an example of amazing creativity into a food product with an expiration date.

Here are a couple of eggs we decorated at our house that I wanted to share (artistic shout outs to Maeve Bradley and Jesse Bradley). We are no longer satisfied with using dies and stickers. For these pieces we cut out shapes with X-Acto knives and hand painted details with fine brushes.

To get the Sophwell logo, I printed out the logo on a label, stuck it to the egg, and then cut around each letter, I dipped it in the dye, dried it and pealed off the remaining label.

Now that Easter has passed and I have posted the picture to the web, I think the best use for this one of a kind egg would now be… lunch.

A creative holiday party decoration

One of the reasons I like having the brand expression consultancy Blackcoffee as a client is that they bring so much creativity into everything they do. They contacted me after deciding they wanted a life-sized car freshener-styled display tree for their holiday party. They called me on Wednesday. The party was scheduled for Friday.

You’ve seen these scented trees from the Car-Freshner Corporation hanging from a million rear view mirrors, but never one that was over five feet tall.

I love the smell of creativity in the morning

I told them my recommendations for production. Ideally, we would direct print it on a  4′x8′ sheet with the tree image angled to fit two up on a large flatbed printer, one with an automated router that would cut out the die line as well. My challenge was to find out which of my manufacturing contacts could meet the delivery time without going over the miniscule budget. It turns out I was overly optimistic that I could make it happen that way.

Instead, the printing was done on a matte paper by a photographer friend with a large format inkjet roll printer, mounted to foamcore and cut out by hand.

The assembled tree was then sprayed with pine tree scent and prominently displayed where people entered the studio for the holiday party.

So many people come up with great, creative ideas that never see it to completion because they don’t know how it can be done. I love translating these kinds of ideas into finished products. So, what are you thinking about for your next promotion?

Jamie Bradley
Idea Translator

Handle with care - blood bags ready to mail

UPDATE: This post was voted part of a “Best Answer” to a question posed on LinkedIn. (See it HERE)

Mark Gallagher and Laura Savard of Blackcoffee, a brand expression consultancy in Boston, asked Sophwell to help produce a promotion that would excite and arouse both clients and prospects. The color red and the sight of blood certainly offered that potential.

Their concept was a “blood bag” promotion to be mailed for Halloween, with a label mimicking the real thing, and the phrase “B Positive” to both tie in to the theme and offer an upbeat message in a slowing economy. They brought me in early in the design process to ensure that the mailer could be produced AND that the post office would mail it. I offered three recommendations:

1. Make the bags rigid enough to meet postal requirements.
2. Prominently label it as fake blood, or postal workers and recipients may call in the biohazard SWAT team.
3. Include a marketing offer to track response.

Early challenges they gave Sophwell were finding a clear bag material that would seal without puncturing in the mail, and finding a fake blood material that was affordable and realistic. For the marketing offer I recommended, Blackcoffee added, “To learn how to resuscitate your brand and receive a free copy of HERITAGE BRANDING, visit Blackcoffee.com.” They featured a download of this White Paper on their home page.

Once those hurdles were overcome, a sample of the finished piece went to a Mail Design Analyst at the Boston postal business office who gave it his blessing with minor modifications. Because the material was plastic (along with having liquid inside), it could NOT be machine mailed, and Blackcoffee paid a “Hand Cancel” surcharge on top of the first class mail postage.

The result? Within days of the mailing the phone started to ring. The first call was from an outraged postal worker complaining that a bag had opened up in one of their machines, and Blackcoffee would have to pay for repairs. When it was explained that the piece had been approved at the business office and a hand cancel surcharge had been paid, the worker said, “Oh,” and hung up. The next call was from a company saying their receptionist who sorted the mail was “deeply disturbed,” and asked to go home early.

The third call was from a past client responding, “We’ve been meaning to call you.” They gave Blackcoffee a project that paid far more than the cost of the mailing. Other clients and prospects called to say how much they loved the mailing, and within two weeks Blackcoffee had their hands full with new business proposals. Tracking the number of White Paper downloads from their website showed a better than 25% response rate, plus many more visitors to their website in the days after the mailing.

Got a creative idea? Let me help you translate it into reality.

My first job when I started out in the graphics field was pasting up ads (actually, we used melted wax) for the Massachusetts Daily Collegian at UMass Amherst in 1977. It was a 36-page daily newspaper that was published on weekdays and distributed for free around the campus.

Student sales reps would go out to the local businesses in town (liquor stores were big advertisers since the drinking age was 18) and bring back a ratty piece of notebook paper with some scribbled text and a couple of crudely drawn shapes. My job was to translate it into artwork that would print in the paper, with all the important information emphasized and spelled correctly.

Business owners got cranky if the ad didn’t look how they expected and would refuse to pay, hence making the student sales rep cranky when they didn’t get their commissions. I’ve been translating ideas into printed materials ever since.

Recently, I’ve been talking with my old friends at Blackcoffee about what I do. They are a brand expression consultancy that helps companies build more effective brands by integrating brand strategy and brand identity, and they are very good at what they do (www.blackcoffee.com). I have worked with them for about ten years, so I knew they could help me define what I do for my clients that other companies are likely to find valuable.

Blackcoffee owner Mark Gallagher told me, “The reason I like working with you is that you help me be more creative. If I have an idea for something I want to do, I don’t need to know how to do it. I just ask you.”

So that’s what I do. Because of my thirty years of experience in printing, sales, marketing, promotional products, direct mail and my interest in staying current on how things can be done, I am in a position to help people be more creative. That’s what this site is for. If we can do business, great. If not, feel free to take what you can from this forum and share comments about what you know as well.

Jamie Bradley
Idea Translator

(This article was originally posted October 2007 at my old blog at http://bemorecreative.ideatranslator.net. When I put a link to it in my office email signature, my boss threatened to fire me. I don’t work for that guy anymore.)