DC-Graphics Design 4 Print Blog

6 Simple Steps for Stress-Free Design to Print...

2012-01-26T11:15:00.004Z

"TIME IS MONEY" is an old business cliché, so when it comes to getting information to your graphic designer in order to get the ball rolling on a graphic design and print project, it pays to streamline the process and get back to what you do best – your job. If you have to keep feeding bits and pieces to your designer or answering questions regarding the project, it can sap your energy as well as your time. Follow the 6 simple steps below and you will find that getting it right from the start will speed things up tremendously, save lots of time and as a bonus, you come across as a well organised professional.

STEP 1. Write a graphic design brief - which is basically a written explanation from client to designer outlining the key aims, objectives and time scales of a creative project. To help, download my FREE GUIDE here.

STEP 2. Supply all text as a Word document to your designer in plain black ordinary text as they will be extracting and formatting it in their chosen font(s) within their professional graphic design package.

STEP 3. Photographic images should be supplied as JPEG files separately, DON'T embed within a Word or PowerPoint document. They need to be as large as possible, ie; copies of the original shots. Avoid downloading existing images from your website as they will be of low resolution (72dpi) and print images need to be 300dpi. Much better to scale images down than to enlarge them. If you use a stock photo library, then always download the 300dpi versions.

STEP 4. Supply logos as vector graphics, normally as .EPS or .AI files. These will reproduce at the very highest quality and sharpness whatever their final size. Make sure if you do, that all fonts are converted to outlines or paths. This means that fonts originally used within the file do not have to be supplied separately.

STEP 5. Your designer will probably supply you back proofs as a PDF file attached to their emails. You will need to check PDF or printed proofs thoroughly, ie; with a 'fine tooth comb' as mistakes missed can be corrected and the job re proofed. Thus avoiding a complete re-print which will be costly and delay delivery.

STEP 6. When you are happy with everything, email your designer/printer back to say "approved please proceed to print."

I hope the above is helpful to all those of you who have to outsource professional graphic design for final printing. If I can help you with a forthcoming project in any way, please have a look at my online portfolio here. Then call me for a brief initial chat on 0208 440 1155.

Supplying Artwork for Print

2012-01-02T21:27:00.030Z

MANY PEOPLE SPEND HOURS DESIGNING THEIR OWN MARKETING MATERIAL, knowing that they will want it printed professionally – eventually! But not saving your final work in the correct colour format and file type that professionals require can cause serious production problems when professional printing is needed. Having over 25 years' experience behind me means that I can handle everything from concept to completion for you. But, if you just happen to have a design completed and now need it printed, follow my guide below and you won't go wrong when you send your final finished artwork file to print and end up with a job to be proud of.

PDF’s are rapidly becoming the standard file format for transmitting files for printing, but it is important to prepare your PDF file in the correct way.

Supplying PDF Artwork

Press ready PDF - with fonts embedded, for best results – high resolution – 300dpi. Here at DC-Graphics I prefer that all artwork to be supplied to me for printing to be as a high-resolution PDF.

Correct Preparation of PDF Files

When creating a PDF in Adobe Acrobat Distiller, there are job options which must be set for commercial printing. These include default resolution, compression settings and font embedding. Please ensure you choose high resolution. Compression settings for colour and greyscale should be downsampled to 300dpi with “auto compression” set on high. Bitmapped (monochrome: i.e. line art) images should be set at 600dpi. Font embedding should be set to “embed all fonts.”

Bleed
One of the most important elements in artwork for printing! Please ensure there is 3mm bleed all round the PDF, i.e. save the PDF with 6mm added to each measurement (i.e. for A4 usually 210mm x 297mm, save as 216mm x 303mm). Crop marks may be included if you wish. If your artwork is supplied without bleed I may not always be able to add it on for you and you may have to amend your original artwork yourself and then re-supply a new PDF artwork to me.

Bleed and Crop Marks
As mentioned above, all artwork must have 3mm bleed if you require the image to bleed off the edge of the paper. Crop marks should be included if artwork does not fill a whole page area (i.e. no bleed). They should be 5mm long, 3mm outside of the page area and coloured in the colour ‘registration’ to ensure they appear on each colour separation. Please ensure that artwork is supplied at the correct finished size (i.e crop size) required. If this is not possible, please inform me to allow time for amending the artwork.

CMYK not RGB
Please ensure that all embedded images are CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black) files. RGB images may look good on your screen but final output to print is always in CMYK. One should be aware that files converted from RGB to CMYK may alter the colour composition significantly! Further to this, please ensure that objects that should be black only, (black text, for example) are not RGB black, but only show on the black CMYK channel.

Microsoft Office Files
When creating a PDF from an MS Publisher or Word file, care must be taken to ensure spot colours are created correctly in your original documents. Do not set to RGB (Red, Green, Blue) colours as they cannot be printed as such.

Supplying EPS Files
Ensure your files have bleed and crop marks and please confirm the final size of the artwork and supply a hard copy for reference.

Artwork Amendments or Re-submission

I will endeavor to correct any easy to rectify issues that we spot. More extensive amending or correcting is charged dependent upon the amount of time required to rectify. Or I will contact you to advise how to correct the problem and request that you then re-supply a new PDF.

Imposition
Please do not supply imposed pages or pages in “printers pairs” because my printer uses imposition software to impose correctly for our printing processes.

Booklets
If you are supplying a document with multiple pages, please try and make the front and back cover of the document a separate file, and supply as single pages in page order. Also, please remember to allow for “creep” – I suggest you keep all text and copy at least 5mm away from the trimmed edge.

Fonts
Include all fonts you have used in the file. Whilst I have an extensive font collection, there is no guarantee the version you have used matches mine. This can create problems with line lengths and spacing of the type. I will assume all fonts supplied are licensed and take no responsibility for embedded fonts.

Lineart and Images
• Scanned colour and greyscale images should be 300dpi at the final size in the document submitted for output.
• Images should be submitted as TIFF’s, EPS or JPEG’s.
• Line Art (bitmapped) should be 600 – 1200dpi at the final size in the document submitted for output.

Screens
Screen tints may range from 99% down to 1%. From a practical printing viewpoint, anything above 90% or less than 5% will generally not be visible to the naked eye.

Sending Artwork by Email
Please address it to: studio@dc-graphics.co.uk with any relevant information regarding the job. Maximum file size preferred by email is 10mb. Files larger than this should be sent on disk or by using one of the many file upload sites that are now readily available and allow you to send large files, often free of charge. Check out either www.mailbigfile.com or www.yousendit.com

Sending Artwork on Disk
I can accept CD Rom, DVD, and USB memory sticks. Please include a hard copy of your artwork for reference with any useful instructions. Please quote the order reference number and include a contact name, email address and telephone number in case of a query. Don’t forget to keep a copy of your file, in case I need you to undertake changes or corrections.

High Resolution Digital Proofs
My print quotes always include a PDF proof. If you require a high resolution digital proof, then these can be supplied for an extra charge. Proofs are calibrated to the printing presses that will print your job.

If all this is too much to bear, then I can obviously design your project for you and all of the above will be taken care of for you at no extra cost at all. Just contact me on 0208 440 1155 or email me here. And, to smooth the process, download my FREE 'How to Write a Design Brief' here.

8 Ways to Improve Your Direct Mail Responses

2012-01-01T14:05:00.001Z

The offer of an incentive can lift your Direct Mail promotion – especially if it is desirable, not a gimmick and is backed up with good quality graphic design. And, most important of all, relevant to your product or services. It’s also a good idea to state a closing date on your mailshot, to provide a real sense of your reader possibly missing out if they don’t respond fast.

First of all, write a design brief for your graphic designer telling them exactly what you want to achieve, your target market etc. Help with this can be obtained by downloading my FREE 'How to Write a Graphic Design Brief' by going here.

1. Use postcards to send out a press release. Using good quality graphics, be sure to concentrate the text on a single event, such as a new item or a service that your business sells or provides. Keep the text simple, and keep track of the responses to the postcard.

2. Send the postcards to specifically targeted people – especially existing clients or customers.

3. Decide on the size of the direct mail. A postcard is normally A6 (148mm x 105mm) but you could go larger, say A5 (148mm x 210mm). Use 300gsm card thickness if possible, 250gsm card minimum. Graphic design and print quotes can be supplied by sending me your specifications here.

4. If you don't fancy the postcard idea, try paper, but folded in an unusual or unique way. Or have unusual fonts or graphics. As long as you make your mailing interesting and unusual, it can help in its success.

5. Write killer, compelling text that draws the reader in. It's worth spending a lot of time on this step. The text is just as important as the graphics. See an older article I wrote called '12 Power Words that Persuade' here and make sure you use as many of these as possible.

6. Include a free offer or a special 'hard to resist' deal with your mailing (see ideas below). This can encourage a much better response to your direct mail campaign and whets your client or customers' appetite.

7. Send using second class mail on a Monday, to plan for delivery that coming Wednesday. This avoids your mail having to compete with any weekend mail build up on a Monday morning. Allow a couple of days to pass before following up, this gives the receiver time to have seen and opened your mailshot.

8. Make sure that you make those all important follow-up phone calls to all those you sent the mailing to. You just can't rely on sitting back and waiting for the phone to ring. It's probably not going to happen!

Some ideas of offers to use with the above tips…

• Money off in £££s

• % price discount

• Buy one, get one free

• Free first month

• Lifelong discounts

• Exclusive additional benefits

• Free trial

• A related product free

• Multi-purchase discount

• Extra amount free

• Enter a free prize draw

• Enter a competition

• Membership benefits

• Loyalty points

Good luck with writing your design brief and please contact me when you are ready to progress with the graphic design and print part of your intended campaign. I can then get back to you with a very competitive quotation.

What’s Best? A Brochure or a Folder with Insert Sheets?

2011-12-16T00:13:00.001Z

OVER THE YEARS I have worked on a broad range of graphic design projects. I often have to advise a client the best way to tackle a project’s effectiveness compared with its cost effectiveness.

In terms of effectiveness, the difference between a brochure and a presentation folder with inserts really depends on the type of services or products you sell and your target audience. But with cost effectiveness the difference is not straight-forward. In fact a brochure can cost far less to print when compared to an equivalent folder with inserts.

Here at DC-Graphics, the question I always ask a client is how regularly the literature needs to change, be updated or added to. In many cases just one or two pages of a brochure may change over a period of time but this would mean that the whole brochure will need to be re-printed. So although a brochure may be cheaper initially, when re-printed the cost could be greater than an initial investment of a presentation folder with inserts, as only the affected inserts need re-printing. Alternatively several smaller brochures or leaflets can be more cost effective than one large brochure.

Another benefit of a folder is that inserts or smaller brochures can be used separately when required as well as together, adding further flexibility and cost benefit. If you don't want a normal 'run of the mill' A4 folder, I can design a custom shaped folder – perhaps with with curved corners, slots for incorporating a business card, square folders, interlocking flap folders etc. Even ring binder folders with the insert sheets pre punched and colour coded with the legend or guide printed on the folder itself.

Contact me here if you are thinking of instigating something like this and I will get back to you with a competitive quote for a brochure or a presentation folder.

Direct Mail Printed Newsletters Making a Comeback

2011-11-23T12:20:00.003Z

EMAIL NEWSLETTERS are very often not read. In fact they are often deleted without them having been opened. They more often than not, end up in spam/junk mail folders and eventually get deleted for good. Many businesses are now realising this and are going back to the good, ‘old fashioned’ printed newsletter, sent out as direct mail, ie; in the post to a specific, named recipient who you know will more than likely receive it and open it. This means your newsletter is much harder to ignore and throw away.

If you do it the right way, a printed newsletter can be a really good investment for your business. It might be a customer newsletter to boost sales and referrals or it could be an employee newsletter to educate workers and provide recognition.

The rewards you could reap could not only be an increase in sales but improved employee morale and more enhanced customer service levels. Either way, your newsletter should generate a return on your company’s investment. And the more cost effective your newsletter, the greater the return.

Here’s some tips:

• Your newsletter’s articles should have a specific objective. Avoid using “fun” articles that don’t accomplish anything unless they are specifically linked to your customer's or employee's interests.

• Articles in in a customer newsletter might be chosen for their ability to draw-in potential customers, boost sales, encourage repeat business and improve customer loyalty.

• Articles in an employee newsletter might be used to spur-on workers towards a common goal, provide recognition, improve morale within the business etc.

Sharing:

If you’re a dealer or retailer, you probably receive some advertising money from your suppliers when you include their products in your ads and flyers. Take advantage of this advertising money by featuring your suppliers’ products in your newsletter too, either through an article or as a display advertisement or as an ‘advertorial’, an ad backed up with an editorial story.

Save on postage:

Reduce postage costs by sending your newsletter out with your invoices. You can save a fair bit on postage if you include your newsletter with another mailing you are planning. Using an A4 sized newsletter means it can be folded so it will fit inside your invoice envelopes.

Size does matter – part 1:

A four page, A4 newsletter is by far the most popular format for a company newsletter to send out to clients and customers. Sometimes a single A4 sheet printed both sides is adequate. Remember, if you are targeting busy business people, keep your newsletter brief, relevant and to the point.

Size does matter – part 2:

On the flip side, an internal, staff newsletter may need a lot more pages. News about staff and their achievements both personally and business-wise will fill more space. I create one every quarter for my client Radio Taxis, a black cab company in London. They realised that their drivers don’t do email that much, are obviously on the road most of the time, and so they asked me to design, print and distribute their A4, 30+ page newsletter every quarter. You can see what it’s actually like and even flick through it online by clicking here.

How I can help:

DC-Graphics can design and print a quality newsletter and even get it mailed out for you. This leaves you with time to get on with what you do best – your job. If you're thinking of creating a printed newsletter from scratch, then you will need to write a graphic design brief so that your designer knows your goals and aspirations. Download my FREE 'How to Write a Graphic Design Brief' for help with this subject or any other graphic design for print project you may have in mind by clicking here. Check out my Gallery Pages 1 - 4, my online portfolio of work. Then contact me here for a quote or to send me your brief.

A local graphic designer's thoughts on logo design

2011-07-29T11:47:00.007+01:00

A LOGO FOR BUSINESS is very often the quickest way to build a brand’s recognition and credibility. This means it’s the most effective way to make a target audience aware of your company and all that it stands for visually, rather than just relying on the company’s trading name only.

Once the logo is designed, it is how it is used that can make or break the future marketing efforts of the company that commissioned it. Companies who want a slick, easily recognisable logo must learn to see it as an investment. They will continually have to ensure that it is correctly used. The logo should be designed to provide an insight into the brand, a quick, visual rendition as to why your target market should care about you and your company. It should eventually, through constant marketing, become a symbol that reflects quality, reliability and credibility of the products and services that the company aspires to. This is where a logo and corporate identity come together and need to be ‘worked’ so that logo and company image are maintained. If the new logo ends up slapped into a Word document and used just as flippantly elsewhere, then there is almost a guarantee that it will become distorted and end up looking a very poor rendition of its designer’s original concept. If a company does not care on how the quality of its image is perceived, then how much care will they give their to their products, services and their customers?

High expectations
Many clients nearly always want a logo that represents just about every aspect of their company in the marketplace — this is something that’s just not possible. When this is actually tried, the logo can end up as a jumbled mess of ideas without any focus whatsoever. For example, a car company’s logo doesn't have to have a car in it for it to work.

Very often, the client will expect their new logo to have the same impact as known brands. Creating a visual brand takes time and effort and just cannot be done overnight. It takes a long time for a logo to build credibility and instant brand recognition in the marketplace with its target audience. Just think – how many of the logos we instantly recognise today would be turned down? Client comments would possibly be; “too simple” and “does not show enough about what we do!” How many clients would say yes to simple logos like Nike and Apple without wanting to add just a little bit more? Nike and Apple are perfect examples of how “less is more”. But… they have developed their meaning through time and regular investment into dynamic marketing procedures. Using their logos and corporate identity are now viewed as the brand’s promise to its customers. More logos would be successful if the expectations placed on them were much more realistic.

Good logo design should:
• authentically communicate the business and what they have to offer
• be a reflection of the brand’s positioning
• show it is different from its competitors
• easy recognition at a glance
• strong, slick and creative
• be able to be used in colour, black and white, large and small

A good, well designed logo should manage all of the above in the most simplest of ways. Reflecting the value of the business and the foundations of the brand. Once the target audience has dealt with the company, the logo then becomes a badge, confirming the strength, reliability and credibility of that business. The company’s own behaviour, as well as its marketing, must then do what it can to influence these perceptions. The logo needs to become a symbol of trust that the customer can rely on regularly, proving that they are a clear advantage over their competitors.

Logos, corporate identity and branding
Once a new logo is designed, a corporate identity and branding image should be established. Guidelines on usage need to be established. This is normally in the form of a Corporate Identity Manual, designed and created by the original designer of the logo. This document should outline the correct usage of colours, style and even the fonts and their spacing etc that have been designed to work in sympathy with the logo for all of the company’s future marketing material. This manual is well worth the extra cost to the logo design. If the client switches its designer or printer then this document is invaluable to ensure that the correct image of the company is handled by anyone else. A brand is the organisation’s reputation – how consumers see it. But, even though the organisation does not fully control its brand, it can influence it. The best way to influence anything is to be consistent. So by being consistent and strict with the logo’s correct usage and adhering to the corporate identity guidelines, slowly the company’s positioning in the marketplace will rise.

Samples:
Some of my logo designs I have created for local businesses can be viewed by clicking here. And a case study showing logo design, stationery and van livery for a local locksmiths can be seen here.

For all forms of graphic design for print, please visit my website by clicking here.

You can also follow me on Twitter here.

How design for print has changed over the years

2011-07-27T12:33:00.007+01:00

I'VE BEEN IN THE GRAPHIC DESIGN & PRINT BUSINESS SINCE 1975. After 3 years at college learning about design, typography, the printing process and bookbinding techniques, I was thrown into the fast-moving world of advertising, graphic design and print. I started at a small printers in Hertford on £18 a week!

Over the years, my training and years in the business means that my ‘eye for detail’ when it comes to correct letter spacing in typography and the flow of text with multiple columns is spot on. Letter spacing is particularly important in the setting of headlines. Spaced correctly, it is pleasing to read and easy on the eye. This is why my logo design work is more involved than people think. My computer sets the words I type, but I always go back over headline text and kern (tighten-up individual characters to each other) the letters as this is where the human touch is needed.

Back in the late seventies, the general public did not know what a font was. Now, since computers have been around, virtually everyone knows that a font is a typeface used to set text within documents. Ordering typesetting was originally done by sending a secretary’s typed words (on a typewriter) to the typesetting company with instructions hand-written in the margin, instructing what font, size and leading (line spacing) was required. Advertising agencies even used to employ a full time ‘typographer’ to do this every day. These guys worked closely with their fellow graphic designers. All the text that needed setting was given to a compositor/typesetter by either getting the office junior to run it round on foot to the nearest typesetting company or it was sent over on the telecopier machine. It was not long after all this that the word processor replaced the typewriter, the telecopier replaced the post, the fax machine replaced the telecopier and email seems to be replacing the fax machine. When was the last time you actually faxed something? Or received one?

When I was designing work for clients back in the late seventies, visuals (mock-up layouts) were all produced by hand using coloured Magic Markers, Letraset and Rotring Pens! When those layouts were approved, (which the ad agency rep would physically take to the client to view), the final approved copy (words) would then have to be typeset by a typesetting company. Hot metal was around then. Lead type that had to be either hand-picked from a case and assembled by the skilled compositor or typesetter who could read everything back to front, or it was set on a Linotype or Ludlow machine. Here the operator would type on a keyboard and then ‘slugs’ of type were actually cast in molten lead and spewed out into lines to be gathered and compacted into a ‘chase’ (a metal frame holding composed type). Even then, the type had to be proofed by inking the type and taking a ‘pull’ of it all by running a roller over a sheet of paper aligned on top of the now, inked up, type slabs. Imagine the client changing a line of text to bold. The whole slug of lead had to be removed and re-cast again and replaced into the chase. Now we just highlight with the mouse and click ‘bold’.

Hot metal typesetting was soon left behind by the coming of photo typesetting. Photographic paper was typeset by photo exposure. No hot metal, no battered letters, no ink, just consistent quality typesetting. Either way hot metal or photosetting, whatever was output, this went to a ‘paste up artist’ who would cut the type up using a scalpel into manageable blocks and paste them onto a stiff board. Heading at top, text below etc using something called ‘cow gum’ - a rubber based adhesive. The whole artwork sheet (after checking) would then be marked up for colour by way of an overlaid translucent sheet with instructions of what colour went where and then the whole lot would go off to the printer to be photographed, film made, which in turn was used to make the final printing plates. A few years on and, as we all know, computers came along. When Apple Computers brought out the first desktop publishing computer, the Apple Macintosh in 1984, things really hotted up for designers, ad agencies and printers. Typesetting and block makers gradually folded and the skilled typographer was redundant and email was added to the speedy way to get work done.

But remember this - The computer is a tool. Having a computer with a publishing program does not make you a graphic designer. You need years of training linked with professional trade industry software that can do the job and output files that your printer (or web designer) can read on their computers. So don’t bother with all that, if you have a marketing project that involves design and final print, come to me; Doug at DC-Graphics in Barnet - where my training, eye for detail and years of experience will make the path between concept and completion a short and very smooth one.