Blog Posts

10 Tips for Creatives in a Digital World

Digital Variable PrintingIn the last 20 years, the creative process has undergone a nearly total digital transformation, giving creatives the power to eliminate steps in the workflow, deliver new value and change the way clients are served. Here are some helpful hints for managing this expanded creative latitude.

Follow the standards. Standards like SNAP, GRACOL, SWOP, PDF and PDF/X help enable today’s ever-faster turnarounds, ensuring smooth handoffs from creatives to pre-press and printer.
Simplify the workflow. By moving to a total digital, standards-based workflow, many creative agencies and production operations move at much faster paces, with fewer people.
Explore elegant digital typography. Much like offset, high-end digital presses are excellent for reproducing solid text with fine lines and serifs as small as four point.
Specify Pantone colors as spot colors. This allows most digital printing systems to achieve the best match to the original spot ink by using an optimized Pantone matching table.
Mix paper stocks. Digital presses allow automated intermixing of different insert and cover stocks within the job, with no waiting for ink to dry. And they retain vivid color across all papers, even uncoated stocks.
The basics still apply. Many of the same rules apply in digital printing as in offset and gravure. It’s not enough for the pages to look spectacular; the designer still has to pay close attention to details, such as type readability.
Use “On-Press Proofs.” Digital presses can switch between jobs on the fly, permitting printers to easily produce on-press proofs that are the exact output of the job, on the same paper. This eliminates the need for simulated proofs produced by offline proofing devices.
Make final tweaks. With the all-digital workflow of a digital press, late revisions and many color and image quality adjustments are more easily accepted  and applied – a major advantage for digital printing.
Explore new applications. Cross-media, variable information and on demand communications programs are all ideally suited to digital printing, and they provide a valuable service to clients who want to provide the most timely, accurate relevant, and persuasive information.
  1. Follow the standards. Standards like SNAP, GRACOL, SWOP, PDF and PDF/X help enable today’s ever-faster turnarounds, ensuring smooth handoffs from creatives to pre-press and printer.
  2. Simplify the workflow. By moving to a total digital, standards-based workflow, many creative agencies and production operations move at much faster paces, with fewer people.
  3. Explore elegant digital typography. Much like offset, high-end digital presses are excellent for reproducing solid text with fine lines and serifs as small as four point.

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Catalog Printing and Marketing

pdt_icon_CatalogCatalogs are a great way to introduce your complete product line to potential or existing customers.  Some companies release product catalogs on a quarterly basis, whereas others who don’t have a rapidly changing product line release on an annual basis.  Catalogs can also be released on a seasonal basis depending on your business’ product line.  For example, if you are in the business of selling costumes than you obviously should have a catalog fully dedicated to just Halloween costumes come October.  Catalog printing is a traditional marketing method that seems to have withstood the onslaught of the internet.  Most people still appreciate a physical catalog and more often than not they actually take the time to go through the entire catalog. This is because it is clearer for some people to browse linearly one page at a time through your catalog than navigating aimlessly through a website.

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Understand the Role of Table Tent Advertising

table tentsA table tent is a triangular, tri-fold, marketing or advertising piece that is usually seen in restaurants, bar tops, and random office counter tops.  They are effective by nature of its bulky shape and our human tendency to pick them up with our hands.  People have grown accustomed to looking at table tents largely in part because of our dining experiences.  How many times have you sat down in a restaurant and while deciding what to eat pick up the table tent that is advertising a special.  Now more importantly, how many times have you actually ordered that special being advertised on the table tent?  I’m going to guess probably a handful of times. You see the table tent has warmed its way into our hearts because we see it as a supporting advertisement that helps us makes decisions when the situation calls for it.  We make a closer connection with the advertisement because we pick it up with our hands and expect it to show us something interesting and when it delivers it really delivers! Continue Reading…

Xerox iGen4 Variable Printing Solutions

igen4

The Maine Office of Tourism helps visitors plan the perfect trip.

As the marketing organization for the largest industry in the state of Maine, the Maine Office of Tourism serves a wide range of travel-related businesses and a broad spectrum of potential visitors with diverse interests.

Their challenge: reaching every hiker or beachcomber or antique-seeker with the information that is most relevant to their interests and most likely to persuade them to choose Maine.

For the Maine Office of Tourism, the benefits of using state of the art tools to attract a larger share of new and return visitors are clear. With more tourists, more revenue is brought into a state highly dependent on the travel industry. In a tight and competitive market, a targeted and personalized mailing is a better use of the Maine Office of Tourisms budget than a one size fits all approach.

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