Making your print POP and WOW

by Sarah Izzo

Design meeting function is the lifeblood of creative marketing. The digital age has only seemed to increase the need to up the ante on getting attention and leaving a lasting impression. To what lengths do you need to go to do that? What really has value?

Researchers are learning more every day that the tactile experience creates a greater engagement, increased attention and memorability. Studies are showing that even those heavy textbooks might be better than the laptops and some are already suggesting a reversion back to the backbreaking bookbags.

Thus, we find that a digital message gets the least amount of focus. A video engaging the sense of hearing gets a bit more attention and recall.

by Sarah Izzo

Planning to save time and money while keeping the gray hairs away

There are plenty of event checklists, blogs, websites, systems, apps and agencies dedicated to providing information on all things event planning. What we want to focus in on today is the event collateral material - the general timeline and deadlines that might be needed when you plan your event. There are a lot of moving parts to an event that can either come together easily or the train can derail in mass casualty of confusion leaving you looking for hair dye.

by Sarah Izzo

Don’t die from licking the envelopes!

Utilizing mail houses saves time and money on postage.

Christmas is almost upon us and most of our client’s holiday messages are already in the mail. The US Post Office has encouraged a private industry of mailing companies by offering postage discounts for doing part of the job of sorting. Postage discounts that can be quite significant for our nonprofit customers and absolutely worth the savings for every customer. Often the reduction in postage can offset the cost of the service making the entire experience hands off for the client.

by Sarah Izzo

Where are mailings in your marketing budget?

Did you know that Office Express offers mailing services?We have shared in the success and the proven ROI of direct mail with our customers. In these digital days printed material has proven to gain more focus from any audience. The days of catalogs are more relevant than ever so if your social media campaign is falling flat consider a printed piece.

by Sarah Izzo

It is starting to get a little chillier outside and with it the holiday season is upon us—holiday cards, calendars and branded gifts … oh my! We want to discuss these common custom printed items that come up this time of year and how to get them from OEX.

For holiday cards, you can go completely custom through your rep or the OEX Print Team - just reach out to us directly at print@oexusa.com or by phone at 248-307-1842. You can also select an existing card to custom imprint right through our Holiday Card Site at https://oex.4printing.com/. 

I've talked briefly about our custom printing website in the past and today I'd like to take you on a tour to show you how easy it is to use.  Our site, print.oexusa.com, has multiple functionalities. We can create a portal for your company with a document library that lists all the custom printed items that you buy from us and you can select what you need and place your order online. We can set up templates for your business cards that enable you to enter the information for the cards, see an instant proof, approve the proof and place your order - all in just a few minutes!  Don't want to set up an account?  No worries!  You can upload a file, place an order or request an estimate - all as a guest user.

Let's start that walkthrough I mentioned.  I'll show you how to place a business card order.

A great graphic designer can take your outline or idea and turn it into an amazing piece.  Creativity is their job - and their passion.  If you submit a file that just needs a few tweaks, they can do that as well.  A little work or a lot - they can fix it for you and make it something you are really proud of.

But design work isn't free - which leads me to today's "Do."

I'm going to temporarily stray from the Do's and Don'ts that I've been writing lately to address a subject that we get a lot of questions about:  paper weights.

Paper weights can be a bit confusing.  I mean, how is it that a 65 lb. cover stock is heavier than a 90 lb. index paper?  Give me a few minutes of your time and hopefully it will be a little clearer.

Today I'm going to give you a "Don't."  Here it is:

Don't wait until the last minute to place your order.

You might think this would be common sense, but many people don't understand what's involved in custom printing and they wait until just a few days before they need the item (sometimes the day before!) and then call it in.   In reality, there are multiple steps in the printing process and these take time.  

Today's subject can actually be a Do and a Don't.  

DO:  Review the Proof Carefully

When you submit a job to a printer, they will usually send you a digital proof for approval before the job goes to press.  Make sure you check every detail on that proof - check for spelling, punctuation, alignment, fonts used, missing words, things that may have jumped off the page, etc. At OEX, we do our due diligence to ensure the accuracy of the proof, but human beings are flawed and they do make mistakes, despite their best intentions.

So here we are talking about custom printing again.  I'm starting a new series called Do's and Don'ts and my hope is that the questions and topics in this series will help you to understand the print world a little better and make it easier for you the next time you need a piece custom printed.

Today's topic is a "Do."

And we're back!  I just knew you couldn't wait for the riveting conclusion to our discussion.  Part 2 deals with images and a touch of color.

Let's start by discussing image resolution.  The optimum resolution for all files is 300 dpi or 600 dpi for line art or text.  Even if your job contains black and white images, they should be saved as grayscale at 300 dpi.  All images should be included at 100% scale (of the print size) and must be submitted in uncompressed TIFF format without layers (flattened). They must all be converted to CMYK colors.  Remember, a higher quality image resolution does not always result in better print quality.  Excessive image resolutions (beyond 300 dpi) will only dramatically increase your file size and, in most cases, will not improve the print quality.  Additionally, it may require extra time to upload larger files.