Getting more hands on with print

Without doubt there’s been a major shift over the last 5 years towards digital marketing content.

Partly this has been driven by depressed marketing budgets, but more so by our preference for the speed and immediacy of digital content. We all want information more quickly and that means we want it online.

However, this trend now means that when printed materials are used you need to add another dimension to make more of an impact.

Different paper stocks, beyond the usual 150g silk, add an additional tactile element that can enhance the user experience. Thoughtfully selected textures can be an effective way to enhance your communications.

This is something people really miss from online brochures. Touch is an important sense and something which, as we move more and more online, will increasingly differentiate your brand.

We are seeing this tactile dimension being more and more important for high-end, considered purchases, where people will sit down together and discuss options, as well as targeted DM pieces where clients are looking for something special to make a real impact.

Plus, it puts a whole new meaning to “keeping in touch” with your customers.

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Design basics – Print industry jargon 2 of 2

Part 2 of our guide to decoding the mumbo-jumbo:

Offset Litho(graphy) print
The most common printing process we use, the inked image to be printed is transferred or offset first to a roller layer before coming into contact with the paper which takes up the inked areas .

Pantone matching system
A standardised system for colour referencing and matching used by designers and printers from a common set of colour swatches index by unique number.

PDF (Portable Document Format)
A pdf is a common file type used for both proofing and print ready artwork that combines all elements of a design, images, drawings, layouts and text into one file for easy delivery to the client/printer. PDF’s also have the added advantage of being able to take client mark-up amends.

Perfect binding
Perfect binding is strong, precise and neat binding method where all pages are trimmed to a single sheet size. They are clamped together and a cover is wrapped around the spine. The pages are attached to the cover using a glue adhesive.

Personalisation
Where data can be merged from a spreadsheet to create print tailored for the individual recipient, elements are unique to an individual print piece. Usually facilitated by the digital printing process.

Print ready artwork
The finished design of typesetting, illustrations and photography, composed in a form which is ready for the printer to print.

Process Colours
Another name for the colours that make up full colour printing, Cyan, magenta, yellow and black.

Saddle-stitch
A common cost effective method of binding using metal staples.

Self-cover
Refers to document using the same paper weight throughout the document.

Sign Off
Once a client has approved a project proof for print by way of signature on the proof or an approval form, this is called signed off, which is the stage the final artwork is passed from us to the printer.

Special Colour
A colour which cannot be accurately made from mixing the four CMYK component colours. Often used to accurately recreate corporate colours in a brochure with photographs and text – this is termed a five colour job.

Stochastic screening
Stochastic is an attempt to improve printed image clarity and ‘sharpness’. Coming from the Greek ‘to guess’, stochastic screening renders an image from much smaller dots than would be found in conventional screening. Consequently, there are no rosettes, but stochastic methods are capable of producing a high quality images at relatively low resolutions.

Tint
A percentage shade of a solid colour eg. a 50% tint.

Trapping
The process of slightly overlapping adjacent colours to eliminate the possibility of white lines that could appear between them during printing.

Typesetting
The assembly of text and images on a page traditionally from a hard copy mock-up but now using digital means.

Typo
A spelling or grammar error in the copy of a document. Short for typographical error.

Varnishes
Varnishes are often applied to printed materials to protect from smudging or to enhance appearance. There are five common types – machine, gloss, matt, silk and uv. Varnishes are commonly used on matt or silk coated paper as these are more prone to smudging than gloss coated paper. Varnishes can be applied to a small specific area of a page known as a Spot varnish or to the whole document as an overall varnish.

Web Fed Press
Used for cost effective print on large quantities these presses are fed by paper from a reel, they are normally used for lower quality work such as the small sales leaflets often inserted into many magazines.

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Standing out from the crowd

It’s encouraging to see a growing number of UK’s exporters investing in exhibitions to reach new markets.

It wasn’t long ago that people were predicting the end of the trade show as everything moved online, yet our experience tells us that more and more companies are planning to attend exhibitions over the next 12 months.

However, some changes in the way companies are exhibiting today mean that design consideration really needs to be top of your agenda.

The key trend we have noticed is that companies are now spreading their budgets across more exhibitions rather than throwing everything at one big show.

This dynamic is being driven by the companies breaking into new markets and seeking to reach new audiences. Growth in annual exhibitions within emerging markets continue to rise year-on-year, a fact that’s echoed by the rise in UK exports to these regions.

However, if you’re spreading your budget across multiple exhibitions it’s all to easy to opt for a bare bones approach with a real with the danger of becoming just another shell scheme with a pop-up.

Is that really how you are going to get noticed?

Investing in a strong brand presence is essential to getting attention and demonstrating confidence in your company.  You need a strong visual impact to attract visitors and stand out from the crowd.

Particularly when entering new markets, your trade stand is often the first contact customers have with your brand.

And, after all, first impressions do count.

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Beware the Olympics

The Olympics are rapidly approaching and clients’ thoughts are turning to specially themed olympic promotions. What most people don’t realise however, is the astonishing range of protection that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the London Organising Committee of the Games and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) have in place.

This is not just a case of having the normal protection of trademark legislation. There are two specific acts of parliament dedicated to protecting the Games and their rights; the Olympic Symbol (Protection) Act 1995 and the London Olympic and Paralympic Games Act 2006 (The London Olympics Act).

The legislation covers all the symbols, not just the rings. A good overview can be found here. As well as the more obvious visual and written marks, there is also a series of ‘Listed Expressions’. Using a combination of these could also put you on the wrong side of the law.

The Listed Expressions are:
– any two of the words: Games, Two Thousand and Twelve, 2012, Twenty-Twelve
OR
– any word in the list above with one or more of the words: London, medals, sponsors, summer, gold, silver, bronze

As you can see there are many potential pitfalls and if you are considering an olympic themed campaign it is important to familiarise yourself with the law. It would appear though that the best advice, unless you are an official partner, would be to steer clear.

Further Reading
1995 Act
London 2012 brand advice
Intellectual Property Office

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Consistency is the key to branding for social media

As more and more brands embrace social media it’s easy to think of it as something that’s different to other forms of marketing communications.

However, in our experience, social media is best viewed as an extension of your brand that needs to be truly integrated to be effective. The secret to this integration is consistency across three key areas:

Consistency of Visuals – alignment of your visual brand across offline and online media is critical. Offline communications can be effective in signposting customers to your social media presence, whether that’s point-of-sale materials or DM campaigns. So it’s critical that the user experience when they arrive on social media platforms is aligned with this. Here’s an example of this integration for a client:

Consistency of Message – sure, social media has its own etiquette, but that doesn’t mean that you should abandon your brand messaging and start posting updates of the latest office party. You need to maintain the tone of voice that you use across all your communications.

More so than offline marketing, your social media footprint builds over time and, more importantly, is accessible at all times. If you look at your company’s Facebook timeline do you see a consistent brand message or a haphazard collection of posts depending on who was managing your page at the time?

Which leads us to the third key area…

Consistency of Behaviour – social media needs to be ingrained in the culture of your company. It’s not a dip-in, dip-out process but an incremental one which, over time, builds long –term engagement with your customers. Get in to the habit of using social media consistently every day and invest in creating visual content that gets shared.

Likewise, your brand will be judged on how you behave online.

So, whether you’re a firm of solicitors, a charity or a lifestyle brand, what you say, who you “like” and how you interact with others matters to your brand.

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