Lamination

Laminate is a very thin sheet of clear plastic which can be applied to one or both sides of a sheet of paper. It provides protection from handling and prevents ink from smudging or coming off on the hands (this does not apply to most digital printing which use a dry ink toner). Lamination is commonly used on the outer covers of premium brochures, corporate folders & premium business cards.


Lamination is also a great way to bring out either texture printing or Spot UV.

What Does Your Business Card Say About You?

I want each of you now to reach into your back pocket - or your bag and pull out your business card.

Take a look at it as if you were handed this at an event by someone else. What are your immediate thoughts? What does it say about you, not just in the text - but in the design and the quality?

If you're not sure - follow this step by step thought process.

• Whats the paper it's printed on like? is it thick - does it feel premium, or does it feel a little flimsy and cheap? is it protected with a laminate?

• Whats the print like? Are the colours sharp and crisp? or is the line up of colours (registration) off? Has it been printed off on a home printer?

• Now what does it say? Has it got your attention or it a little hard to read?

• What about the design - does it look personal to the company or is it a generic template? Does it look professionally designed?

• Now how about the size, is it within the standard (85mm x 55mm) or is it slim and long or too big to fit into anyones business card holders?

• This one often gets over looked - are the details all professional? i.e. The address isn't a PO Box, there's no sign of a gmail or hotmail address anywhere? It's so easy nowadays to set up a domain and email address that no-one should be using these for business anymore.

All these items may seem a little bit detailed and over the top - but I guarantee you, you'll make these observations in seconds when looking at someones card AND you'll make judgements about their business.

The same can be said for yours. The next time you hand yours out to a potential client - they will be judging your business based on this. This is (most of the time) the first & lasting piece of business marketing that stays with a client when you've gone home - YOU NEED to make it stick.

What Does Your Business Card Say About You?

Customer Spotlight - Fong Spa

This month we're taking a look at Fong Day Spa in Northampton. Owned and run by Yin Jeune, Fong Spa is a haven of retreat from the hustle and bustle of daily life. Your health and wellbeing is at the heart of Fong Spa and their aim is to ensure every client always feels welcome and special.

Fong has two lifestyle solutions, Fong Beauty and Fong Spa.

They strive to provide a friendly, personal and professional service with highly trained therapists, whether you are visiting for a quick eyebrow wax or a full day spa package. They even have some great packages suitable for men as well.

Yin wants you to leave Fong Spa feeling relaxed, refreshed and revitalized! If you'd like to find out more about Fong Spa check out their website www.fongspa.com.

Pantone Numbers - How they can help your brand

Last month we talked about the Pantone System, a standardised colour reproduction system used by almost every printer to help create specific colours. When you think of large brands, brands that incorporate colour into their identity - it's more than likely they'll use a specific set of number to represent those colours. Take for example Ladbrokes - they have a specific ink mixed for their Red, this means - wherever they choose to get their items printed, the Ladbrokes brand is the same. There are still a few limitations with digital print - but even this is becoming rare with the advancement in colour matching systems.

So you can see the power of having a 'brand colour' attached to your business. It can also help with costs. Lets say you have a Green in your logo. Without a Pantone colour for this Green - everytime you get this printed - the printer is recreating this from the 4 colours (CMYK) by using a pantone colour you've reduced this to 1 colour. So again you can see the benefit in using a Pantone colour in your branding - of course it can work the other way also - if you're printing an item with a photograph in or something with extra colours, having a Pantone colour in there would mean adding another ink and bringing the inks to 5 (CMYK+Pantone). So it really depends on what you're print requirements are and what you're having printed.

I hope this has been of interest, if you're thinking of replacing a colour in your brand with a Pantone and would like some help - I'll be more than happy to talk through any queries you have to help make this as easy as possible. Just send me an email. richard@bluestarprintsolutions.co.uk or give me a call on 0844 272 9109.

Digital Texture Printing

Wouldn't it be nice if you could feel your print as well as see it. Well with advances in digital printing - it's now possible for that exact thing.

   Lets say you were printing a picture of an Orange, there'd be no reason why you couldn't incorporate the texture of an orange peel into your artwork so you can stimulate the sense of touch as well as sight with your next marketing piece.. or lets say your business is reptiles.. there's nothing stopping you adding the scaly skin from a reptile onto a picture to really make them come to life. The possibilites can only be limited by your imagination. Together with Digital personalisation the possibilities that your next direct mail campaign could really jump out to your customers could be too big to ignore.

If you'd like more information on texture printing just drop us an Email or call us with your questions or items that you're thinking of and we'll help you along the whole process.

richard@bluestarprintsolutions.co.uk or 0844 272 9109.

Roller Banners

Some great new Roller Banners we've just produced for a customer of ours - these are 800 x 2000mm  210gsm Polyester Hybrid UV Cure printed, 90% stop-light. Great for mobile applications or more permanent applications - these are for craft shows.

Roller Banners are a great way to exhibit your business or goods They're also extremely portable as the majority of roller banners these days come with bags as well.

If you're in need of a quick video on how to put one up or take one down - check out below.

Photo Book Gift

It's nice once and a while to get a completely bespoke piece of print.

This book was created as a leaving gift for someone. Working with Spinnaker Direct we produced a 32pp Hardback Leaving book with pictures and notes from colleagues and friends.

The book was also needed in a very sharp turnaround - so within 3 days we had the item printed and down to Hove ready for presentation.

Pantone Numbers

The Pantone Matching System is a standardised colour reproduction system. By Standardising the colours, different ink manufacturers in different locations can all refer to the Pantone System to make sure the colours match without direct contact with one another. One such use is standardising colours in the CMYK process. The CMYK process is a method of printing color by using four inks - Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Key (Black). A majority of the world's printed material is produced using the CMYK process, and there is a special subset of Pantone colours that can be reproduced using CMYK.

Those that are possible to simulate through the CMYK process are labelled as such within the company's guides.

However, most of the Pantone system's 1,114 Spot Colours cannot be simulated with CMYK but with 13 base pigments (15 including white and black) mixed in specified amounts.

The Pantone system also allows for many 'special' colours to be produced such as metallics and fluorescents. While most of the Pantone system colours are beyond the printed CMYK gamut, it was only in 2001 that Pantone began providing translations of their existing system with screen-based colours. (Screen-based colours use the RGB—red, green, blue—system to create various colours.)

Pantone colours are described by their allocated number (typically referred to as, for example, 'PMS 130'). PMS colors are almost always used in branding and have even found their way into government legislation (to describe the colors of flags).

Newsletters

"The single most effective tool you can use to build PROPER Relationships with your customers." 
Nigel Botterill

If you currently send out email marketing or similar. Is there anything stopping you having a hard copy of what you send and posting that out as well? You could use the e-marketing to supplement the printed edition and provide even more information to your customers! We're making it easier for you to get your hands on some newsletters and are currently working out packages that not only include the content writing, layout/design & print, but the mailing of your newsletters too! That means all you have to do is sit back and carry on with what you're good at - Running Your Business. If you're interested in this opportunity - [3]click here to register your interest. We'll send you over the package details as soon as we've finished them.

Print Freedom

What is Print Freedom I hear you shout! Well, Print Freedom is what everybody has the ability to achieve and can lead to some serious time savings if done correctly.

Think back to the last time you ordered some print - did you spend a while looking around online to find the cheapest site or a site that didn't look too suspect to order your print from? Maybe you have someone you already go to for your print? But think about whether either of these areas are actually saving you money.

There was an instance of someone in a business ordering print, a salesman I seem to remember - he had a quote given to him straight away for the item - but thought "Hang on! I wonder if I can get it cheaper..." 4 hours later - he runs up to his boss and claims "Great News! I've saved £10 on that first quote!".

He couldn't work out why his boss was less than pleased with this!

Print Freedom is within everyones reach. Combining knowledge of the market, industry and products is what will eventually save money on your items. Take us for example - we're not tied to a specific press - which means we can direct your job to the specific press intended for it.

We'd love to hear from you if you have any instances similar to the above and how you overcame it.