With the proliferation of electronic communications, you might imagine that printing is becoming less important than it was previously. Couple this with the ever increasing availability of do it yourself printing options and it is easy to see why many businesses are deciding not to use professional printers. This is usually a mistake however; whether you are looking to produce flyers and brochures or need help with business card printing there are many reasons why hiring an expert is a good idea. Here a just a few:

Cost

Probably the most common reason why businesses decide to do their printing themselves is the perception that it will save them money. Generally though this is a mistaken belief. Factors such as economies of scale and minimal wastage enable professional printing companies to offer extremely competitive pricing that will often be less than anything that you can achieve yourself. When you factor in all the employee costs of doing all your printing in house, the false economy becomes obvious.

Time

Professional printers can save you more than just money. Their entire raison d’être is to provide printing services, so they will be geared up to respond immediately to any urgent requests. If you have an urgent printing project and you try to deal with it in house, you will find yourself competing with all manner other priorities in order to get it done. Moreover, specialists in any field are simply more efficient. Specialist printers spend their time improving and streamlining their processes, so you would be wise to take advantage of the effort they have put in — effort that you cannot possibly hope to match in house as your priorities will be rightly focused elsewhere on your core business activities.

Quality

The printed material produced by a company should reflect the company itself. Customers are strongly drawn to anything that suggests high quality and are equally put off by anything flimsy or unprofessional looking. Amateur printing has come a long way, but there is still no doubt that for really high quality results, a professional printer is the best option. Professional printers have access to the best materials and equipment. Coupled with specialised skills the results can be markedly different from even the best amateur printing.

Consistent results

In the unlikely event that you are able to achieve sufficiently high quality results with your in house printing, you still face a huge challenge. You need to do it again and again and again. Achieving consistent results is one of the most difficult challenges of all, but it is one that it is absolutely vital to meet. Customers will notice of your quality varies and it will create a very bad impression.

Prioritisation of resources

Unless your business is a big organisation with large enough printing needs to require a dedicated full time department, any in house printing will require a shuffling of resources. Whomever you entrust with the responsibility of handling a booklet printing project or producing brochures, will not be able to focus on their core role. Surely it is far better to outsource this task and let your employees concentrate on the key profit making areas of your business.

Why Professional Printing is a Good Idea is a post from: Dark Horse Articles

Colour in print media and digital media is very different although it may appear the same to our eyes. Here we discuss the differences in colour on your computer screen and on your digital camera and that of when you are printing. Specific colour changes and file types are necessary for certain types of printing. Normally in large printing volumes or extremely high quality printing such as in expensive high end magazines or real estate booklet printing, off-set printing is normally used and this is where colour and colour types becomes extremely important. Here are some of the basic issues to be understood.

RGB vs CMYK. Colour monitors and the display screens of your digital camera emit colour as RGB (red, green and blue.) Although all colours of the spectrum can be produced by varying the amount we merge red, green and blue, they can only display a limited range of the visible spectrum. It seems strange, but it is true. Where as monitors and display screens emit light, paper (and most of the object that we see in our life) absorb colour and reflect light at specific wavelengths. Cyan, Magenta and Yellow (the CMY of CMYK) act as filters to varying degrees of the red, green and blue of white light to produce a particular range of the spectrum. Yes white light is made out of red, green and blue. Black must be added when printing, and that is how we get what is called 4 colour printing CMYK, although full Cyan, Magenta and Yellow will give black. Because the range of the spectrum in the RGB image and then the CMYK the range for the two will not be the same. Therefore the the colour of the images on the screen may not match with business card printing or book publication.

Converting colours from RGB to CMYK. The means of converting images may vary from user to user, however how an image is converted is normally best left to the printers requirement. Colour and colour profiles are big business and have there are several and varied colour standardising systems existing in the world today. When converting files with software we need to know the requirements of our printer and use the right type of software and the right settings for our printer. Sometimes printing companies may ask you not to convert your images to CMYK and instead require your images to be in RGB format with ICC (International Colour Code) profile saved with the file so that the printer can use colour management techniques and software to manage the change from RGB to CMYK.

Other issues. There are other and very complex techniques to getting the right colours when printing, such as because the combination of CMY that will give us a 3 colour black (as they are subtracting colour where RGB will give us white) and we must add black when printing we also need to manage the levels and ratio of the 4 colours to get the desired result. There are a variety of issues such as spot colours, half tones and the list goes on. To fully understand the management of colour transition, and the tools associated with maintaining consistency, is truly a profession in its own.

All About Colour in Print Media is a post from: Dark Horse Articles

Whether we will use photography for our business card printing or even printing out good quality photos there are elements of photography that we should consider for print media compared to just uploading or using those images on our computers or for display on the in the internet. Here are the essential points to help you get the most out of photography (for the beginner) to be used for printing and print media.

Most of the big name camera and film companies are all but phasing ordinary cameras. Digital cameras have become the standard norm. This presents us with a few new issues compared to film in photography for use in print media. Our discussion here is based on the use of a digital camera.

Know the requirements of print media that you will use. You must always check to know the requirements of the printing and print media that you will be using. Some printers may use laser printing for lower numbers where resolution is not so much of an issue. In other cases off-set printing or 4 colour printing may be used, know the format of the images. Know what is the required resolution and the required file type and file settings. Your camera may have functions to help you get a better shot.

The need for large images. We always want to get the best out of every shot. It is best to start taking your photos with your camera set to to take high definition and and save large files. When images are resized at a later date, resolution levels need to stay in proportion otherwise images will become blurry or pix elated. For example a large image of 100dpi can be resized to be a smaller image of 300dpi but the a smaller image of 100dpi cannot be be made larger either in size or resolution with good effect. So in principle if you are photographing for print media always take your photos at the largest resolution and the largest size to make them more workable and usable.

Getting the right camera. Many cameras may offer you good resolution and large image saving but not be that good for actual printing. The image may look good on your screen but the actual image may be washed out or colour toned when it is converted for printing. In my experience I have found some big name brands always to have good colour transition from digital to print. Essentially if they were good makers of standard cameras then they are normally good makers of digital cameras. Some companies were good at making TVs and now they are making cameras and so they often do not have the know how to get good quality images to print especially in professional settings. For extreme professionals there are very expensive cameras and software systems that are specifically designed for use in high quality print media. Make sure you have the right equipment.

Digital photography for professional print media can be of truly high quality and it is also related to experience with specific printers. Knowing the requirements of the printer and knowing how to adjust images for that specific printer is extremely important. The above guide will allow you to take digital photos for use in print media. However good photography is still a separate art form. If you are producing imagery for high end company brochures or for high end booklet printing needs it is often best to consult someone with experience.

Photographing for Print Media is a post from: Dark Horse Articles

Have you ever thought about using customised promotional material for your business? If you haven’t, this is definitely something you should consider. With such a wide variety of products available that are suitable for customisation, your business name and message can easily reach hundreds of potential customers each day.

Why should you choose customised promotional material? The main reason is usually the least obvious to business owners. They are of the opinion that the use of promotional products will be horribly expensive, and much more than their advertising budget can stand. All they can see is that they are giving something away, something that cost them money. What they fail to realize is that by handing out these little gifts, they are building company recognition. People will see the business name and logo, or a company slogan, every time they use the item.

Take a coffee mug for example. Most adults use such a mug every day, sometimes more than once a day. Every time they grip the mug’s handle to take a drink, they can’t help but notice the information that is printed on the side of the mug. Even the use of a customised promotional item that is as small as a keychain or a pen for writing can carry your message to potential customers neatly and efficiently.

In fact, these smaller items often will be inadvertently passed from person to person, giving your business information even more exposure. Everyone who sees your various promotional items could be considered a potential customer. If your message jumps out at them, they can very well turn into new and then repeat customers. Promotional items that turn heads have a way of doing this!

Customised promotional material is not as expensive as you would think, especially when you consider the cost of other types of advertising for your business. A print advertisement stays in the mind only for a short time. Even a television or radio commercial will gradually fade from memory. However, an item that is in use every day, which includes your company information, will bring your business into the lives and minds of those who have it in their homes.

How would someone go about getting customised promotional material for his or her business? You first will need to decide exactly what item or items you will want to use. It’s possible that you can choose products that are connected in some way to your business. Or, you can just go with the most popular items, such as products from a calendar printing service, computer accessories, pens, mugs, candy, bags, and computer cases. What you choose can depend on how much you want to spend. You may choose to hand out the smaller, lower priced items more freely than the larger, costlier items, but that is up to you.

There are many sites on the web where you can see and choose from the many promotional items offered by different printing companies. Any company that does a good job of colour brochure printing, or the printing of any other common marketing tool, will also be able to do a good job on your customised promotional items.

Customised Promotional Material Will Turn Heads! is a post from: Dark Horse Articles

Anyone who spends a lot of time online may be unaware of the popularity of print media today. When you shop online, read the news online, and make use of online magazines, you don’t really have time to pay much attention to advertising that is anywhere else. Despite the ease and speed with which one can find out all sorts of information online, print advertising is alive and well… thriving, in fact.

Though it’s hard for computer-savvy people to even fathom such a thing, many homes do not have a computer, nor do they plan on purchasing one any time in the foreseeable future. These people depend on the time-honoured method of viewing advertisements in newspapers and magazines, as well as on flyers, brochures, calendars and the like.

It seems that some folks, especially seniors, have an odd distrust of computers, and wouldn’t think of giving up their daily newspaper, or their monthly magazine subscription! In fact, statistics show that in a month’s time, around 70 percent of adults will use an advertisement from the newspaper to help them make or plan to make a purchase.

Many businesses seem to be leaning toward spending more time and attention – which of course translates into money – on their online advertising. This is a mistake! You could be reaching far more people if you also advertised online. Don’t take an “all or nothing” attitude with your advertising budget! You know that your online ads are bringing in customers, but have you ever stopped to consider that segment of the population that you are not reaching, simply because they never go online?

Internet advertising does have its advantages. No one is going to argue about that. But, there’s something so tangible about an advert in a newspaper or magazine, or for that matter, an ad printed on any kind of paper. People like something they can hold, something they can keep, or fold and place in their pocket or purse to help them to remember a certain product or service that they would like to try. There is a place in the world for both types of advertising. Your business could end up far ahead of the competition by paying equal attention to both options.

It is less expensive to advertise online than it is to use a flyer printing service or hire a professional printer to take care of your corporate brochure printing. But, in the long run, you will find that it is money well spent. Actually, it would work out to be plain good business sense for you to use print advertising in your business as well as online advertising.

If you have wondered how you could attract customers from your local area, then the printed word with attractive graphics is the way to go! Then, place your web address in all of your printed advertisements for a double dose of advertising goodness! It doesn’t have to overshadow your print ad at all, but if you want the address to get noticed, have your chosen professional printer use a nice-sized font, and perhaps a vivid and unusual colour that blends in with the rest of the ad.

Get the word out that you have an online presence as well as a brick and mortar store, and you should see your business improve!

Print Advertising and Your Business is a post from: Dark Horse Articles

If you’ve put your business on a diet – or rather, if you have a budget for your business, you’ll be glad to know that using print advertising does not have to be horribly expensive. In fact, print advertising can be used to your advantage rather easily when you are staying within the confines of a budget.

Print advertising means using newsletters, pamphlets, brochures, posters, postcards, calendars, flyers, greeting cards and the like to make a statement about your business. There are times when making a statement can be advantageous to even a small business. Even though you may have a web site for your business, it isn’t a good idea to always confine your advertisements to the web. People offline may see your printed offerings, and become interested in doing business with you because of them.

In advertising, the name of the game is to bring in customers, both new ones and those who have purchased from you before. Print advertising can have a distinct advantage over web advertising in that it is more portable. You can read a flier or a postcard anywhere. Even though there are laptop computers, you cannot necessarily say that you can use them just anywhere. If you are somewhere without computer access, then a web advertisement isn’t going to do you much good at all!

In an ideal world, a business would advertise on the web as well as offline. Print ads could mimic web ads, or they could be entirely different for a reason. Taking advantage of colour brochure printing is a good idea in more ways than one. Brochures are cheap to mail, and people do enjoy receiving them, especially if they are well made and eye-catching. They are capable of listing quite a lot of information in a relatively small space, and are not the sort of thing that most people would throw away. Instead, people tend to save them to refer to over and over again.

Using print advertising for your business around the holidays is a really innovative way to get the word out about your business while also presenting your customer with a small gift. Custom calendar printing allows you to customize both the photographs and the information on a lovely 12 month calendar for your customers. They will use this gift for an entire year, and think of your business each time they look at the date!

To take advantage of the many benefits of print advertising, you need to choose a professional supplier for your printing needs. Try to find a printing company that will work with you on both the design and the text of whatever printed product you choose to use. You will be pleased at the speed in which your printing order will be delivered, and also with the professional quality of the work. You can use print advertising in conjunction with your web site for a double dose of marketing smarts. Always place your web address somewhere on your printed advertisements. You may find that people will be drawn to your site online that would never have found it otherwise, bringing your more business on a steady basis.

Using Print Advertising To Your Advantage is a post from: Dark Horse Articles