Because we do advertising mail, people are asking me about postal delivery all the time. It takes 2 to 9 days for your standard mail to be delivered, even to a local address, and 2 to 3 days for your first class mail to make the same trip. Nancy DeDiemar, a national print shop mailing expert, recently revealed the man behind the curtain, and explained a little more the reasons for this difference.
Delivery time is determined by...
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Here we will explain how to use business card masters, or shells, to save money, time and increase quality. As we see it, that is the big three for our customers.
How does printing masters save money?
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We have noticed a few changes in the way people are designing and using business cards. They seem to be less formal these days and a little bit more friendly. Now that full color printing is quite common for business cards, you’re more likely to see full-color graphics and logos or photos on them.
Another interesting trend is round cornered business cards. While we used to just die cut the round corners we now have a new machine that can do this quicker in smaller batches. Rounding all four corners is the most common but some people round just two or even one.
Something else that is a small but growing trend is more like old-fashioned calling cards. It’s hard to call them business cards when they just contain personal information. Couples and families are getting them with their personal contact information and e-mail addresses on them and sometimes even their blogs listed on them. People are even buying them for their high school and college-age children. Since people seem to be networking ...
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Did you ever see a greeting card that had a shape cut into it and wonder how was made? Die cutting. Or have you ever seen a business card with round corners? Die cutting. Or how about the hang tag on a stuffed animal? Yep, you guessed it, die cutting.
Printers have offered a technique called die cutting for many many decades. This is the process of cutting a shape into the paper using a die, which resembles a thin cookie cutter. Just like making cookies, as the die is pressed into the paper, it cuts the shape out.
There are new die cutters that are high-speed, production machines that will crank out large volumes of work. For smaller projects the only way to go is an old-fashioned letterpress. These old machines are workhorses. Many of them are 50, 60, 70 years old or more and are still working great.
Die cutting adds functionality, like the holes in Rolodex cards or the slits for business cards in a presentation folder. Die cutting adds sophistication, like a business card with rounded corners or an ...
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You don’t have to be a graphic designer to make a document more effective. There are four basic principles that can help any document have a bigger impact on your target audience. It doesn’t matter if you are making a flyer, newsletter, or poster, these principles apply.
Proximity is the idea that related items are close together. You don’t want a business card with the address on the top and the phone number on the bottom. All of this information is how to contact you. Placing it in close proximity tells your viewer it’s all together. Conversely, you can draw attention to a heading or word by making if far from any other element on the page and surrounding it with lots of white space.
Alignment means that every element is visually connected to each other. Aligning the right edge of an image with the left edge of a block of text creates an invisible line that connects the two and gives the whole document a cohesive feel. When aligning text to a page, it is easy to make everythin ...
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The cool, understated elegance created by embossing provides a unique look as well as security. “Embossing” is the term used for two similar processes. The far more popular process is the art of raising a relief image of words or pictures in paper. This is known specifically as embossing. The other process is called debossing, and, as you may have already guessed, it is the art of pressing an image down into paper. Both processes are generally called “embossing,” and they are ideal for letterhead, envelopes, business cards, invitations, and thank you notes.
Many people are attracted to the high-class, old world craftsmen look of embossing. Others like the touch and feel of the raised image. While still others comment on the unique look that embossing gives. Unlike most letterhead or business cards you see today, which have many things in common, these cards look a lot different. The relief image also helps your business cards stand out in a stack.
In addition to this unique look, ...
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What gets your attention better than your name? If you’re walking through a crowd and someone calls to you, you will stop in your tracks to look around. The same rule applies in marketing. With Variable Data Printing (VDP) you can call out to each and every one of your customers individually and stop them in their tracks.
Simply put, VDP is technology that allows varying levels of customization of your print communication. The most popular use is customizing the name and address on a direct mail piece, but VDP can do so much more.
Depending on the quality of your database, you can create highly customized marketing communication. You can make it so that your clients in Las Vegas get the offer for a trip to New York, and your clients in New York get the offer for a trip to Las Vegas. Or you can make it so all the women on your list get one coupon while the men get another. Or go all out and send the men and women in each location ages 20-35 one offer and those ages 36 and older another offer. Eac ...
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How can an industry that is based on paper consumption have a positive impact on forests? It takes one tree to produce a stack of paper that stands about 5 1/2 feet tall. It takes 15 trees to produce 400 packages of paper—a full skid. Nevertheless, through direct and indirect influences, the printing industry as a whole is helping to preserve and even grow our forests.
One obvious thing printers are doing is recycling. Paper is one of the easiest and most versatile products to recycle. Nearly all printers today recycle their waste paper. With the growing public awareness of environmental issues, even the final products printers make are recycled. The EPA reports that 56% of all paper consumed was recovered for recycling in 2007–5 years ahead of the set goal. And “since 1994, significantly more paper has been recovered in America than landfilled" (EPA).
Many printers have taken responsibility to the next step, and they are planting trees to replace the ones they harvest. Here at Alleg ...
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Like a large pond, the world is interconnected, and a single pebble can cause ripples that are felt long after the pebble has sunk to the bottom. We have seen a devastating example of this with the housing market debacle of recent years. Another pebble has fallen, not quite as big, but it is causing some interesting ripples.
Advertising mail, or what used to be called junk mail, has been in the decline recently. Nancy Dedimar, a print industry expert, wrote an article about this topic in the February issue of Quick Printing Magazine. She said that mail volume in general declined an unprecedented 14% in 2009. What are some of the ripples of this pebble?
Like television and radio, the postal service makes money using advertising. In this case, it is advertising mail. Dedimar said that “In 2007 and 2008, standard mail, which is dominated by advertising mail, provided $20.6 billion of the $74.9 billion and $66.5 billion, respectively, of the total USPS revenue.” She further explained that ...
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