Sophwell works with companies to create tangible products from creative ideas. Much of what we do is print related. I’ve been in printing for a few decades now, and I have overseen production of millions and millions of printed pieces.

I sometimes struggle with the idea that what I do is wasteful and that it contributes to the mountains of garbage Americans produce. I have long been concerned about the environment, illustrated by the newspaper clipping below from 1971 when I helped coordinate a school-wide Earth Day project (cue the snarky remarks about the hair).

I'm not new to this sustainability thing (from 1971)

I still am working to reduce waste. Tangible products are critical components of a marketing and communications strategy. I work with clients to minimize production of materials that are wasteful or ineffective. Here are a few of the common guidelines I recommend.

Know your audience
Your promotion is junk mail to people who aren’t interested. Somehow I got on the list for a medical supply company who’s catalog gets tossed into my recycling bin. I’m convinced that this wasteful practice is the reason direct marketers often get a 1-2% response rate.

Make sure you know your database before you send out that expensive catalog. Reach out first with a postcard or some other cross-media campaign that gets them to opt in to your marketing program. They’ll tell you what they want, and it will reduce waste.

I picked up this foam stress reliever from a printer's trade show booth. The picture does not relay the creepiness factor.

Don’t produce junk
Promotional products can be a highly effective component of marketing and incentive programs, but most people do it wrong. They are the equivalent of the lazy direct mailers, giving out 100 cheap pens at trade shows when only 1-2% of people are actually prospective customers. And trust me, that $.29 pen will dry up and get tossed (or worse, leak!) within the month. What does that say about your brand?

Identify your target prospect before the show. Offer a much nicer item, but only to people who give you permission to follow up later. They will keep a nicer product much longer (extending your campaign lifespan) while opting in to hearing your marketing message. Please, no more cheesy-shaped stress relievers.

Design efficiently
Printers buy paper in standardized sheet sizes that correspond to established press sizes. Understanding those sheet sizes allows graphic designers to lay out pages for ideal utilization.

For example, when a printed page has a bleed (where the image extends to the edge of the page), it typically requires an added 1/8″ of paper that needs to be trimmed and discarded. This sometimes means that the printer has to buy a larger sheet to fit your design. Talk to your print provider on how to design for more less waste. It will usually save money, too.

Don’t make the logo bigger
With promotional product or apparel giveaways, there’s a temptation to make the logo as large as possible. You’re paying to have your name there, right? Why not have it big enough for everyone to see.

Unless your brand is one that people closely identify with, your “Super-Size Me” plan probably won’t work. Oversized calendars end up rolled up in a closet instead of on a cubicle wall where real estate is sparse. The “XYZ COMPANY 2005 SUMMER OUTING” screen printed shirt only comes out when it’s time to mow the lawn. And by all means, do not put a date on a piece of clothing. (“I saw Jen wearing a 4-year-old T shirt. Eww.”)

Produce what you need
Does your business have stacks of printed materials from that giant press run three years ago that seemed to make sense since the unit cost was so much lower? Fine, except now you’re too embarrassed to hand one of these outdated, dusty and yellowed folders to a client. This common practice actually increased your unit cost for the pieces used when you factor in the worthless value of the ones in the recycling bin.

The high quality and efficiency of digital printing and smaller offset presses has negated the “more is cheaper” argument. Instead, print what you can use over the next 6 months. If you run out, print more (and fix the typo you missed last time). Consider setting up an on-demand program with your supplier that allows you to quickly reorder the latest materials through an online portal.

Use sustainable materials
A company that wanted to present themselves as environmentally friendly recently asked me to quote on producing packaging with film lamination. The problem is that film laminated paper can’t be recycled, and there’s only one brand that can even be composted.

Work with someone knowledgeable to advise you (or do the research yourself) on the source materials and recycleability of the products you select. Paper comes from a renewable resource, and paper fiber can be reused several times before degrading completely. Many fleece and microfiber apparel products come from recycled soda bottles. New plastics are being made from biodegradable corn starch. The products are out there, often at comparable prices to the less eco-friendly alternatives.

Work with someone you trust
Where do your products come from? Is that water bottle made with BPA, a plastic additive that mimics a female hormone in the body and is being investigated by the FDA? Are there toxic inks on that coffee mug from China that could get your company big fines in California under Proposition 65?

Make sure you express your environmental concerns to your supplier in a way they understand that it’s important to you. With so many Fortune 500 businesses now promoting sustainable practices, you don’t have to worry about coming off like a granola-eating tree-hugger (not that there’s anything wrong with that).

Many printers have gone through an extensive certification process with the FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) or SFI (Strategic Forest Initiative) to help clients maintain sustainable practices. Large promotional product manufacturers like Bic are also implementing their own programs, even when some of them have not had the best records on this in the past.

It may seem daunting to add sustainable criteria to an already overburdened marketing manager’s tasks, but all it really takes is developing an understanding with your suppliers that sustainability matters to you. The good ones will be on your side. The bad ones, well, you know what to do with those.

What have you done to promote sustainability? I welcome your comments below.

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.