Information about general printing practices
Personalized mail is a special commodity these days, especially something that looks smart or sophisticated.
Everyone agrees that there’s a huge difference between a typed letter on a bland white page and one aligned smartly on a beautifully designed letterhead.
This video from the National Museum of Industrial History in Bethlehem, PA explains how Otto Mergenthaler and his invention “The Linotype Machine” revolutionized the printing and publishing industries in the early part of last century.
PrintWorks was originally founded in 1924 as Bonekemper Typesetting in Lansdale, PA as an independent typesetting firm. The Bonekemper team ran three shifts typesetting newspapers, books and other documents for print companies in the northeast, and was the largest type house outside of a major city in North America at the time.
We had two of these machines until 2001 when our last hot type client, a greeting card company, ceased operations. We typeset thousands of lines of these hot metal slugs each year during the Christmas season until the technology was replaced by digital printing in the early 2000’s.
We’ve seen a lot of change through the years, and we have come a LONG way! We embrace change and understand that we must continually adapt to the ever changing needs of the marketplace.
Equipment and technology comes and goes but there is one thing that never waivers: our commitment to you, our customer. A simple commitment reflected in our mission statement:
We deliver creative Print & Marketing Solutions that make our clients successful. We keep our promises, provide creative solutions, and achieve our client’s goals.
Read more about our Mission, Vision and Values on our website: PrintWorks Values
In the meantime, enjoy learning a little about what makes our business so cool!
ETIQUETTE TIPS FOR TRADE SHOWS
The most important part of any trade show or business event is how your staff presents themselves to potential buyers. Here are a few etiquette tips for trade shows and other business events:
After taking the time to create a beautifully designed file and getting it ready for print, you want to make sure you don’t ruin it by choosing the wrong paper.
But with so many types of paper to choose from, it isn’t always the easiest decision.
Elements such as brightness, opacity, weight, and finish, are just a few of the many qualities that go into printing paper.
So let’s dive in to each and give you a better understanding of how to choose the right paper for your next print project.
Brightness is simply the paper’s ability to reflect light.
The higher the brightness is, the clearer the images will appear when they are printed on it.
However, keep in mind that brightness and color are not the same thing.
The important thing to know about brightness is that it directly affects the readability of the print.
High brightness emphasizes the contracts between both the light and dark hues, where low brightness can sometimes create a blurred effect.
Another important thing to remember is that brightness and whiteness are not synonymous either.
For example, a paper that has a blueish-white hue will actually appear whiter than a paper that is pure white, even if they both have the same brightness level.
As opposed to brightness that reflects light, opacity is the ability for light to pass through the paper.
High opacity, a.k.a. higher density, increases the readability of the page because you won’t as easily be able to see what is on the opposite side of the page.
If one side has a large colored picture, and the other side is simply text, a page with low opacity will make the side with the text hard to read as the image will most likely be seen through the paper.
If you’re planning on printing brochures, newsletters, or even two-sided sales sheets, make sure to choose a paper with higher opacity.
Now this quality is one that confuses many.
In all honesty, when I first started working in the printing industry, the concept of weight passed right over my head.
If you’ve ever heard paper referred to as 20 lb. or 110 lb., you know exactly what I’m talking about.
For those not familiar with it like I once was, the immediate thought is “how can a sheet of paper possibly weigh over 100 pounds?”
But unlike the number you see when stepping on a scale, these
weights refer to the weight of a ream that is given to paper at its basic size.
Who knew that in 2016, the printed word would be considered “non-traditional?”
Non-traditional?
We’re saying this about a medium that was developed back in the 1400’s by Johannes Gutenberg!
While Webster’s (of dictionary fame) mind might be little blown by this reference, when you think about it, it actually makes a lot of sense.
For the past two decades, digital media has been rapidly replacing many of our formerly traditional ways of doing things, from watching television, reading the newspaper, to yes…print marketing.
With the democratization of information that the internet has brought, more and more people are consuming this information digitally.
Social media and search engine algorithms target our interests and bombard us with advertisements directed at those interests, to the point that we’ve become immune to the ancillary advertising “noise” that surrounds the article that we are reading online.
Ad-ridden blogs and online media are now considered traditional and print marketing has proven to stand the test of time.
Getting Attention With Quality Print Marketing Materials
A good piece of print marketing material is an incredible investment, but a bad one will quickly have the exact opposite reaction that you intended.
Unlike the old days, most print marketing materials today are designed on a computer. After all, it’s never been easier to get the exact look that you want with just a few, quick clicks of your mouse. One of the most important things to keep in mind, however, is that
the way a material looks on a crystal clear HD computer screen can be quite a bit different from the way it looks in real life if you’re not careful.
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