January 2nd, 2023
Posted in Standees | Comments Off on Commercial Printing: The Raw Power of Movie Standees
Photo purchased from … www.depositphotos.com
For almost a decade, along with our other gigs, my fiancee and I installed standees at movie theaters.
First of all, what is a standee (we asked the same question over ten years ago)? A standee is, more often than not, a physical environment made out of cardboard, with commercial printing press sheets laminated to corrugated board or chipboard, and usually involving the die cutting and spot gluing of the assorted pieces. Standees arrive at movie theaters in boxes weighing up to 100 lbs, with all of their flat, unassembled components stacked in the shipping cartons.
The job of a standee is to sell the movie. The job of the standee installer is to read the multi-page assembly instructions; to assemble all the pieces into movie characters using tabs, slots, bolts, and nuts; and to attach all of the movie characters to the printed backgrounds, creating environments that will inspire viewers, elicit a desire to participate (many of the standees move in response to viewer interaction), and ultimately buy tickets to the movie.
These standees are often accompanied by banners, posters (called one-sheets), or other large format print media.
As you can see, standees are very much dependent on the marriage of marketing, graphic design, and offset and digital custom printing.
Given our current midterm election season and the upcoming presidential election in two years, I thought it timely to discuss two political standees, one that moved and talked when its motion sensor was triggered and one that was actually a “photo-op” character at a family gathering for one of our art therapy bosses.
The Talking Political Candidates Standee
The first standee included two separate political candidates. (I googled the film just now and couldn’t find its title. It was current in or around the year 2015.) They were die cut male images in suits with cardboard easels to hold them up. As I recall, when you got up close, a motion sensor triggered a solid state recording attached to a speaker, so both of the characters could talk. In addition, as I recall, there were small motors and plastic gears and other assemblies that caused at least one and probably more of the political candidates’ arms to move.
It was actually quite complicated, and the assembly directions were imprecise, so we struggled with the installation. However, it was memorable for a number of reasons:
- First of all, the majority of standees do not move. They are static environments in which you can imagine yourself along with the characters. But since there usually is no movement, those standees that do incorporate moving parts add to the realism of the promotional piece (which is actually a cardboard or paperboard sculpture of sorts). This is true even if the characters are just cartoon images.
- Standees are 3D physical entities, unlike posters. They depend on the rules and principles of physics. If, for example, the standee is top heavy, it will fall over. On a more complex level, if the standee incorporates movement, it will in many cases have a very elaborate mechanism comprising gears, belts, and moving supports to ensure multiple weeks’ worth of its repetitive motion. Observing how these movie standees have been conceived (presumably using both high-end computer aided design and computer aided manufacturing software) can be intriguing because of the mechanical logic and acumen involved in the standees’ successful operation.
- From the position of a commercial printing vendor, these standees can be intriguing because of all the custom printing and finishing operations that go into their construction. For instance, 4-color offset printing on (presumably 100# gloss text) press stock is only the beginning. This base imaging material is then laminated to corrugated board and then die cut in such a way that standee installers can break away the scrap, leaving silhouettes of movie characters that can be added to backgrounds built from much larger box-like structures cobbled together with metal screws, nuts, and die cut tabs and slots. In some cases additional corrugated board supports have been spot glued onto the various pieces to allow them to stand up and/or stand out from the background imagery that is also made of 4-color press sheets laminated to corrugated board.
- From the position of a student of marketing, it is intriguing to see how standees capture the attention and interest of passersby. Granted, some standees are specifically designed to be photo booths. In effect, you can step into the environment and have your photo taken with the movie characters. I think the standees pique the interest and entice the inner child of even the oldest adults. In my experience, the best marketing or advertising work does just this, by telling a story that brings adults and children out of their day-to-day routine if only for a short time.
Barack Obama: The Second Political Standee
The second political standee was a static one. That is, unlike the two political candidates with the motion-sensor operated voice box and moving arms, this standee was merely a die cut image of Barack Obama with a cardboard easel to hold it upright. It didn’t move.
The Obama statue was an addition to a family gathering hosted by our boss at one of the venues for our art therapy classes for the autistic. It was a primarily African-American group, and everyone wanted their picture taken with Barack Obama. My fiancee and I spent the evening taking photos of our boss’ family members and custom printing hard copies on a dye sublimation printer. We made a lot of people happy.
What made the photos intriguing was the transformation of Obama from a flat image on a cardboard easel to a participant in the photos. He was exactly the right height, and the reality of his image as a flat standee vanished when the camera collapsed an otherwise three dimensional collection of people into a flat photo. Obama looked just as real as our boss’ family members (and vice versa). That was the magic. It looked like everyone was getting their picture taken with the real former president.
Here’s what made this experience memorable, in my opinion:
- Many of our boss’ family members absolutely had to have their picture taken with the president. They loved Obama and they were proud of him, the first African-American president.
- This means that their inner child suspended belief for a moment, ignoring the fact that Obama was only a die cut photo laminated to corrugated board, with a cardboard easel spot glued to the die cut image to allow it to stand upright.
- This says a lot about marketing and psychology. People want to be affiliated with famous people, as well as with products and organizations, that reflect their own values. For the same reason that many of our boss’ family members attended the family reunion (perhaps a desire to be a part of something larger than themselves: the family), they also wanted to be photographed with even a cardboard standee of one of their personal heroes.
- I think this is the same reason people like seeing images of Batman and Superman (as noted in the photo at the top of this PIE Blog article). For the members of our boss’ family, Obama was a superhero as well.
The Takeaway
People are willing to suspend belief and to play. Perhaps virtual reality headsets are more high tech than standees, but the idea is the same. Immerse the viewer in an experience or environment that stimulates as many of the person’s senses as possible, and you, as a marketer, can make meaningful contact with the viewer. And as a designer, if you can bring this awareness into your graphic design projects (either 2D or 3D), you will go a long way in capturing the attention and piquing the interest of your audience.
Posted in Standees | Comments Off on Commercial Printing: The Raw Power of Movie Standees
December 26th, 2022
Posted in Large-Format Printing | Comments Off on Custom Printing: More Than Just a Bus, It’s a Billboard
Photo purchased from … www.depositphotos.com
My fiancee and I were out driving the other day, and she pointed out a bus entirely covered in graphics. Even the windows were covered. And there were several QR codes strategically positioned so other drivers could take advantage of what was essentially a billboard.
In advertising, whatever stands out promotes the brand. And as with bottles in the grocery store that have shrink sleeves stretching the graphics across every inch of a product, a bus covered in graphics stands out from every other vehicle on the road.
After all, we are effectively bombarded each day with a huge number of ads (6,000 to 10,000, depending on what you read). And everything from a billboard to a cereal box really is an ad. Everything competes with everything else for your attention.
Analyzing the Bus Wrap
When my fiancee pointed out the vehicle, I quickly whipped out my cell phone and took several photos for later consideration. The bus was for local transport, so it wasn’t huge. And its design presentation, in addition to noting the name of the company, included a background map of the area, a few graphic images, and several QR codes. The overall color (or most prominent tone) was a deep green with other areas in lighter shades of green.
Upon my further reflection, these were the three areas I thought might be of interest to you as readers of the PIE Blog:
- Increasing marketing power with a large graphic.
- Covering windows without obstructing vision.
- Using QR codes to drive traffic to a brand’s website.
The first issue I started to address above. If you want your marketing materials to stand out (in this case a large format graphic), size makes a difference. Covering the entire surface (in this case the entire surface of a vehicle) makes the large format print graphic stand out far more than a simple sign on the side of the bus. It is expansive. It feels larger than life. And there’s nothing else to distract the viewer from the graphic image (no visible windows, lights, bumpers, or anything else that’s part of a bus).
This leads to the second issue noted above, covering the windows. The windows of the bus my fiancee and I saw were completely covered with inkjet graphics printed on perforated window film. From a distance, this appears to be a solid, flat surface on which the large format print images have been produced. But due to the graphic’s being a printed image on a perforated substrate, it is possible to look out of the bus easily without those outside the bus being able to look in. So perforated window vinyl has an added benefit beyond its ability to extend the large format print graphic across the entire surface of the bus. That is privacy.
To give you a little extra information, this mesh product (to me) looks a bit like the 60/40 window mesh I’ve seen advertised (which presumably refers to the printed vs unprinted percentage–of the full 100 percent total area–of what would otherwise be solid, unperforated vinyl for large format inkjet printing).
I’ve also seen material like this used on interior windows of restaurants, on shops in a mall that are under construction (to avoid unsightly boarded up sections and to advertise the brand offerings of the upcoming tenant). I’ve even seen large format print graphics produced on similar perforated material stretched across exterior fences to advertise a company in an attractive way.
And the third benefit of such a bus wrap (or vehicle wrap or fleet wrap) is that once you add QR codes, you allow for a two-way conversation between the consumer and the brand. The person (like myself) who sees the bus and is impressed (or wants more information) can point her or his cell phone camera at the black and white image on the bus, and, using software that can be downloaded to a cellphone, she or he can be directed to a website. Presumably, having reached this website, the interested person can then request more information, or email or call to interact with the company.
The QR code is a cross-media device providing a bridge between print advertising or marketing and an internet experience. And market research has determined that nothing cements brand recognition in the mind of the viewer as well as a blend of print and online marketing. Repetitive, consistent exposure drives up brand awareness.
Elements of the Bus Wrap
What do you need to consider if you’re researching bus wraps or any other large format print vehicle wraps in your own work? Here are some thoughts:
- Find a dedicated vehicle wrap company that can print the graphic and install it. These are two different skills. It is worth paying for both kinds of expertise.
- Consider the length of time you will need the vehicle wrap to be pristine. Depending on what I have read, the life span of a vehicle graphic ranges from two years to six or even ten years. Presumably, this will depend to a good extent on whether the vehicle is parked outdoors or in a garage, since exposure to sunlight, rain, snow, and rocks being thrown up against the vehicle by other traffic will all shorten the lifespan of the vehicle wrap.
- However, choosing the right construction materials makes a huge difference. These include the substrate (a vinyl specifically made for vehicle wraps) and the inkjet inks (latex, solvent, eco-solvent, or UV inks, all specifically fabricated for exterior use). On a side note, one benefit of latex ink beyond it’s being more eco-friendly than solvent inks is its ability to stretch. When you consider the fact that a vehicle wrap is applied with heat and adhesive to a three-dimensional surface with bulges and indentations, the flexibility of the ink can make a big difference in its installation, appearance, and durability.
- You will also want to consider the specific adhesive you will use to affix the printed vinyl vehicle wrap to your bus, truck, or car. These large format print graphics can be removed, so a vehicle wrap need not destroy the underlying paint job. However, it is wise to remove and replace the vehicle wrap before the stated lifetime. As time passes beyond this point, the adhesive gets harder to remove, potentially threatening the underlying auto paint.
- You might also consider an overcoat of some kind, like a laminate or some other barrier to UV light, to keep the inkjet color intensity from fading in the sunlight.
- If you think you can install/apply the graphic yourself, think again. This is highly specialized work. It’s worth every penny to find a skilled installer who knows just how to bend and shape the printed vinyl and wrap it into all the indentations of the vehicle, overlapping the printed segments of the image in such a way that the installed large format print graphic looks like a single printed photo. In addition, the graphic is installed with an adhesive and heat as well as pressure, and a skilled installer knows how to get rid of the creases and air bubbles.
- The good news is that if you scratch or ding a vehicle wrap, it can often be repaired. You don’t have to remove and reinstall the entire image. You just need to print out the damaged portion and reattach it. And this might go a long way in lengthening the life of a vehicle wrap.
The Takeaway
Here are some thoughts:
- Personally, I think this would be a great avenue for creative expression, appealing to designers who like to work on bold, sophisticated imagery. Overall, vehicle wraps are affordable, so advertising agencies presumably need graphic artists to do this kind of work for their clients.
- Study the physics behind the products (inks, substrates, coatings, as well as general aspects of installation) so you can direct a photo shoot if necessary and communicate knowledgeably with the inkjet printing staff and installers. The more you understand the physical process as well as the design process, the better.
- Regarding QR codes being incorporated into the design of vehicle wraps, you might want to study cross-media marketing (the synergistic effect of combining print marketing with digital marketing).
Becoming proficient in all of this will make you indispensable as a marketing creative.
Posted in Large-Format Printing | Comments Off on Custom Printing: More Than Just a Bus, It’s a Billboard
December 18th, 2022
Posted in Design | Comments Off on Commercial Printing: A Striking Book-Design Case Study
Photo purchased from … www.depositphotos.com
Everything I learned about graphic design, I learned on my own by observing. My degree is in English Literature. That said, I’ve been observing, analyzing, and practicing graphic design for 48 years now, ever since I laid out my first high school yearbook.
Last week my fiancee found a print book at a thrift store that immediately caught my interest due to its design or, more specifically, due to the organization of its content and its visual flow from page spread to page spread.
Two Principles of Organization
To illustrate these two concepts, let’s start with the organization of content. Forty years ago, as a print book designer, I would receive a manuscript in which all text was the same size and typeface (written on a mainframe computer). At that stage, a reader would have had no idea of which paragraphs were of greater or lesser importance, which pertained to the front matter of the print book, or which were text, captions, callouts, or sidebars.
It was an undifferentiated mass of text, like some modern novels I have read. My first goal was to break up the text into related chunks, to place these separate text groupings onto appropriate pages, and then to use such tools of graphic design as typeface and point size to either connect these text blocks to one another or to set them apart—based on their content and their levels of importance.
The second concept is more sensory (less cognitive). It is the visual flow of the print book. In this vein, the reader’s eye appreciates contrast. Contrast helps the reader identify related (vs. unrelated) chunks of copy as well as related ideas presented with visuals. It also gives the reader a break from undifferentiated words on a page (as do type size and typeface choices, as noted above).
Analyzing the Book
The print book my fiancee found at the thrift store is called The 9-Inch “Diet” by Alex Bogusky and Chuck Porter. Intriguingly, it is 9” x 9” in format (which is congruent with its title), and it is perfect bound. The content addresses how commercially sold food has been super-sized to the detriment of our health.
As with the books I produced prior to becoming an art director, The 9-Inch “Diet” was initially an undifferentiated manuscript produced in a word processor on a computer. A print book designer made sense out of all the material, and because of this I, as a reader, can now more easily grasp the points Bogusky and Porter make.
Let’s tease out the specific things the book designer did.
Contrast of Size
The running text of the book is set in an easy to read serif typeface in two columns at what looks like about 11 pt. with extra leading (space between lines of type). For ease of readability, the body copy is set ragged right (which is easier to read than justified copy).
Introductory material in the front of the book spans the two columns and is set in a larger point size.
Headlines are set in what looks like a 36 pt. slab serif typeface in all capital letters. Since they are separated from the text with adequate space, the uppercase headlines are still readable (even though an all capitals headline treatment does slow down reading).
The headlines either span two columns (above the text) or fill the column next to a column of body copy.
And there are callouts. If they appear on a page with text, they are slightly smaller than headlines (and are written in a conversational tone), and if they appear alone on a page spread, they are much larger and yet are still set in the same slab serif typeface in all capital letters.
I wouldn’t be surprised if all of this granular information isn’t mind numbing. However, my point is that consistency sets up patterns (and therefore expectations) for the reader to consciously or unconsciously absorb. For the treatment of body text, headlines, and callouts, there is a pattern—and a rhythm—that allows the reader to group information and grasp salient points. Contrast is the tool that makes this happen.
But contrast in this book goes further. There are dramatically different single pages, and double-page spreads, that add variety to the book (and allow the reader to pause in reading the text). Large, all-caps, slab serif typeface blocks of copy (in a conversational tone) are laid out on black, full-bleed backgrounds and white backgrounds.
The large size (the single white or black page or page spread) adds a periodic pause (and a pithy statement) breaking up the flow of the body copy (the running text of the book). This makes these pages stand out, reinforces their importance, and gives the reader a break in reading the text.
Full bleed, double-truck (spanning a full two-page spread) images as well as images that don’t bleed further punctuate the book. In contrast to the complex pages of body text (which often have ample white space around them, reflecting another contrast, one of content vs. no content), these pages are simple, giving the reader only one thing to focus on at the moment.
Visual Flow
Flow is more general (it affects the whole print book rather than just one page), but like contrast of type size and contrast of value (huge white type against a black background and huge black type against a white background), page flow breaks up the book and carries the reader through the text with an implied (and expected) rhythm.
For example, the The 9-Inch “Diet” book designer used “implied lines” to direct the reader. For instance, in one photo a man’s finger points at a single pea on a plate. His arm (in a suit), his hand, and a finger create a diagonal line from the top left to the bottom right of the page, drawing the reader’s eye to the pea (also highlighting the contrast in size of the arm and the pea), while on the opposite page there are two ragged-right columns of type and above these a large amount of white space (this spread opens a chapter, justifying the large white space at the top).
And I just saw this. There’s a tiny head shot to the right of the two columns on the right hand page (i.e., in a scholar’s margin). It is visually analogous to the pea on the plate on the opposite page (the same visual weight). It is also almost exactly aligned horizontally with the man’s finger and the pea.
What this means is that the reader’s eye sees a headline reversed out of the photo of the man’s hand, then the pointing finger, then the pea, then the tiny head shot on the opposite page. So the book designer has led the reader’s eye through the double-page spread. This is exactly what a designer should do, and it happens in a number of other places throughout the print book as well.
More Visuals: Drawings and Silhouettes
Line drawings and photo silhouettes round out the collection of visuals. In some cases the line drawings are informational (i.e., explanatory). In other cases they seem to be used for contrast with photographic images for visual variety.
What makes the numerous photo silhouettes interesting to me is two-fold. In many cases there will be a photo of a food: let’s say a plate of fries in London (5.5 oz) next to a McDonald’s “Super-Size” box of fries (7 oz.). Because of the nature of the silhouette (a total focus on the subject with no distracting background), the presentation highlights the dramatic increase (over time) in food portions in the United States.
The same visual device is used to contrast a plate of baked chicken and vegetables with a much more amply laden plate of fried chicken, potatoes, pasta, and veggies. The first photo has the word “Realistic” reversed out of it. The second has the words “You wish” reversed out of it.
So the visual device of silhouetting an image is congruent with the focus on size (and size differences) that the designer wants to illustrate. It is not a gratuitous effect.
However, as an aside, the silhouetting effect does amplify the white space on the page, which, as noted above, gives the reader a visual break in an otherwise full-to-capacity visual field.
The Takeaway
What can you learn from this discussion? Here are some thoughts:
- All visual techniques and tricks should be pertinent. You as a designer should pick the appropriate tool both to reinforce the points stated in the text and also to show the reader what to read first, second, and third.
- Contrast is a valuable tool for organizing visual and textual material. Consider type size, typeface, background screens, photos. Use generous white space to set apart (and group together) related items.
- Find books and other publications you like, deconstruct them, and be able to articulate how the tools of graphic design were used to reinforce the meaning/content of the book/brochure/etc.
Posted in Design | Comments Off on Commercial Printing: A Striking Book-Design Case Study
December 11th, 2022
Posted in Bumper Stickers and Decals | Comments Off on Custom Printing: Make Your Mark with a Bumper Sticker
Photo purchased from … www.depositphotos.com
Think of a bumper sticker as a miniature billboard. You can share your message with every driver who winds up behind your car. Or, as the photo above suggests, you can broadcast an almost unlimited number of messages at once. It’s a cheap way to advertise. In fact, you can even make a few bumper stickers at home on an inkjet printer or a Cricut personal die cutter.
Design Issues to Consider
Unless a driver is caught behind you in gridlock traffic on a snowy day, with your bumper sticker visible potentially for hours, you have a small window of opportunity to make a big impression. So think simple. One provocative image and a few words. Your viewer shouldn’t have to think about it. However, if it’s humorous–if it includes a play on words–all the better.
Readability is paramount. That means typeface choice is important. I’ve read that serif typefaces are easier to read than sans-serif faces, but with only a few words on a bumper sticker, to me that choice is less important. What is important is to set the type in one line, ideally, with reasonable letterspacing, in uppercase and lowercase letters.
Why uppercase and lowercase letters? Because we don’t read words letter by letter. We read them based on their shape, the contour around the letters. We absorb a word as a single unit. Setting copy in all capital letters makes all words into a rectangle (there are no ascenders and/or descenders in the letterforms to give the word a unique shape). That makes the word much harder to absorb.
Now for the colors. Keep colors vibrant, and be mindful of the contrast between color values (light and dark). Remember that type reversed out of a solid color (or type set in a color) is harder to read than type printed in black ink. Moreover, type printed in a color can be too light to read easily and quickly. The most readable contrast for type is black type on a white background.
That said, since you probably want to add color, just make sure the words will be dark enough to read, ideally from a distance. For instance, light green may look great as a swatch in a PMS book, but once you reduce the ink coverage to the thin and graceful lines of a typeface (rather than a square ink swatch), the text may look much lighter than you expect. This alone may be a good reason to use a blocky sans-serif typeface (rather than a serif face) for the text of your bumper sticker. You won’t have to worry that the thin serifs of a serif typeface will be invisible.
On a final note, consider the logistics of reading a bumper sticker. Your reader will be in a car a certain distance behind you. Both of you will be driving at a good clip and focusing on other things. Fortunately, your viewer will be directly behind you, unlike a driver who sees a banner on the side of a building or sees a billboard at a distance (and perhaps an angle). That said, the bumper sticker will be much smaller than the billboard or fabric banner hanging from the side of a building. Keep all of this in mind when you choose the wording and image for the bumper sticker as well as the typeface and colors.
When in doubt, print out a color copy on your inkjet printer, and look at it from a number of angles and distances.
Commercial Printing Issues to Consider
Durability is paramount for bumper stickers. After all, unlike a brochure, they’re going to be exposed to the elements, the UV rays of the sun, the rain, the snow, even the salt thrown up onto your car by other winter drivers.
Therefore, talk with your commercial printing representative when you print your bumper stickers. Ask about the substrate, for starters. You will probably want some kind of vinyl rather than a wood-based paper. At the very least, synthetic paper like Yupo would withstand exposure to the rain better.
This also pertains to the types of inks used. They will need to tolerate moisture, street chemicals, and sunlight. In addition, you may need some kind of coating to protect the bumper stickers, something like a laminate. Your custom printing vendor will be a great resource when you’re making these decisions.
Next is the adhesive. The bumper sticker has to stay on your bumper and not peel off. As a personal anecdote, I once had a bumper sticker I liked (and that I assumed was close to permanent). It was actually printed on paper, and the adhesive wasn’t very good. So overall the bumper sticker didn’t last very long. Moreover, it looked ugly as the type and image gradually wore away and the paper started peeling up.
Unlike banners that might be on display for only a short time, a bumper sticker really has to be durable and has to stay attached to the car.
So ask your printer about adhesives as well as custom printing stocks and inks.
Doing It Yourself
If you need 1,000 bumper stickers, you will probably have them offset printed. If you need 300 bumper stickers, you will probably have them digitally printed on inkjet equipment (with appropriate inks and substrates).
But if you only need a handful of bumper stickers, you still have options. You can research inks and vinyl bumper sticker substrates for your personal inkjet equipment. These are available. You just need to do a little research. For instance, you may need to select specific vinyl bumper sticker blanks, use special inks, and/or laminate the bumper sticker to protect it.
Moreover, you can even die cut odd shapes and sizes of bumper stickers using a Cricut personal die cutting machine (available in craft stores such as Michaels). These cut the vinyl with a moving knife blade in the Cricut die cutting machine using digital information from your computer application. Then you just “weed” the die cut bumper stickers (i.e., peel away the waste vinyl using a sharp tool).
Although this will pertain to professionally produced bumper stickers as well, when you print your own bumper stickers it will be prudent to apply them using a credit card to rub down the bumper stickers. This will ensure good contact between the sticker and the bumper, while forcing the air bubbles toward the edges of the sticker, where they can be released. (If you do this, first cover the bumper sticker with wax paper to keep from marring its surface.) This will help extend the life of the bumper sticker on your car.
The Takeaway
Your company image is of paramount importance, and a bumper sticker is an ad for your company. Make sure you select a custom printing technology (ideally commercial printing rather than do-it-yourself printing), a substrate, inks, adhesives, and a coating for the bumper stickers, if any, that will ensure that your bumper stickers look good for a long time. (In my online research I noticed a 3- to 5-year guarantee from some companies on their commercially printed bumper stickers.) It would be wise to keep this in mind and to think about how long you want the bumper sticker to remain pristine. Make sure your commercial printing vendor is knowledgeable in this printing arena. (In fact, I’d check for printers who specialize in this kind of work.)
Don’t cut corners with your bumper sticker printing. Consider it an investment rather than an expense. This way you won’t be disappointed, and the condition of your bumper stickers will project an image of crispness and quality rather than discoloration and decay.
Posted in Bumper Stickers and Decals | Comments Off on Custom Printing: Make Your Mark with a Bumper Sticker
December 4th, 2022
Posted in Packaging | Comments Off on Custom Printing: A Unique Shoe (Un-)Boxing Experience
Photo purchased from … www.depositphotos.com
My fiancee and I recently went to Nordstrom Rack for shoeboxes. We’re working with our autistic art therapy students to make Halloween dioramas. They will be miniature rooms with a coffin, spider webs, rats, skeletons, plus any drawings the students wish to add.
As a student of commercial printing, however, I noticed the attention to quality and detail in the construction of the empty shoeboxes. We found about thirty of them for our various classes, and two of them in particular stood out from the rest. I’d like to talk about why they are effective marketing items beyond the shoes they once contained.
Marketing Is a Dialogue
Good marketing is a dialogue. It is personal, even intimate. A brand speaks directly to you. If the company has done research into its clientele, its marketing department will be able to describe exactly who the target buyer will be. This person will have specific likes and dislikes, interests, values. They will share many of these with other buyers and may even have certain similarities in their personal history. The detail of this “persona” is impressive, given all the data the company must collect and digest to envision this model buyer. But the good news is that the marketing research will allow a brand (let’s say in this case a shoemaker) to predict exactly what kind of shoes you will want and to give them to you.
Based on this information, the company (i.e., the brand) will work to communicate its brand values, with which you will presumably resonate. This is true (in the case of the shoeboxes) for both the product and the packaging. The shoes have to be outstanding. Granted. But the packaging has to convince you to open the box (the “unboxing experience”) and try on the shoes.
These brand values, which perhaps will include the quality of workmanship, the stylish nature of the shoes, the social conscience of the company, or on an even more personal level just how good you will look and how you will feel when you wear the shoes—all of this has to be reflected in the packaging (the box) as well as the shoes.
Apparently Nordstrom Rack (at least this one store) recycles more than 300 shoeboxes a day. When my fiancee and I went inside for the boxes, we saw aisle after aisle of shoes, multiple hundreds of boxes vying for the buyer’s attention. Since the shoeboxes have sides that obscure the shoes themselves (a little), a lot was riding on the unique nature of the boxes to sell the products inside.
The Sample Boxes
The first sample box I want to describe is entirely covered with a 4-color comic strip (top, bottom, and all exterior sides). It is a Jeffrey Campbell shoebox covered with empowering and empowered women superheros, including one on a motorcycle and one in space in a meteor shower. It is like a comic strip because one hand-drawn image is set off in a black-edged box, with word bubbles for the character’s dialogue, and there are also other signs and word-bubbles across the surface of the box.
I personally know nothing about Jeffrey Campbell shoes. (I’m sure my fiancee knows a lot, since she is very stylish and knows brands well.) However, with no knowledge except my initial reaction to the box and the words “Women Unite,” Resist,” and such, plus the space imagery and bright colors, I would say that the company’s brand values include not only empowerment but also humor. And humor sells. Most people want to “associate” themselves with (to be “affiliated with”) a product and company that embody these specific values, and the job of the shoebox is to communicate these values.
If you open the box and look closely at its construction (the lamination of the commercial printing press sheet over the thick chipboard), you might say that the company or brand pays attention to detail (in general) and durability (in particular). Not all of the boxes in the store would meet this standard, both for quality package manufacturing and creative, unique graphics. So this goes a long way.
The second box is lime green. In fact, my fiancee picked out a number of boxes in this specific color for our students. When we walked down the aisles looking for empty boxes, these in particular jumped out because of the thick, heavy ink coverage of the lime green, which was almost fluorescent in its luminosity. A box like this is distinctive. In a store with multiple hundreds of boxes of shoes, that’s very important.
As with the first box, the thickness of the chipboard broadcasts durability and quality. Like the first box, the green commercial printing press sheet (with only a white, hand-lettered Sam Edelman script signature and logo on the green) totally covers all chipboard in the box (in contrast to a lot of other boxes in the store). Again, to me this reflects the brand’s attention to detail and overall quality. All edges, folds, and corners are crisp and precise, with the laminated paper square to the sides of the box.
What makes this box unique is threefold. First, as noted, you can see it from across the store. That’s good advertising. Sam Edelman chose not to compete with other brands for the customer’s attention but rather to grab it immediately with the color of the box. Second, the surface of the lime green box has a canvas texture, like a painter’s canvas. It feels good in the hands. You can easily grasp the box. And it also feels strong and rigid.
But to return to my assertion that good marketing is a conversation, the “piece de resistance” is an envelope containing a little saddle-stitched print book included in the box with the shoes.
Here’s why it’s unique.
First of all, the envelope is about 2” x 3”. It has a build of about 1/3” on all sides, allowing for the easy insertion and removal of the print book it contains. The lime green background of the box continues onto this envelope and book, with only a Sam Edelman signature reversed out of the green envelope and the book cover. The booklet is printed on bright blue-white paper, so the words and images “pop.”
There’s something personal about the size of the print book. No one else would know you’re reading it, it’s so small. And inside there are hand-drawn images of a man (Sam, presumably Sam Edelman himself) and a woman (the shoe buyer, Libby) engaged in a dialogue.
All of the dialogue between the two of them (set in a small, sans-serif typeface) centers on where the shoes were made, how they were made, and why they are special. At one point Libby even says, “And because of this I want to keep them forever. Shoes say so much about a person.”
As a reader, I’m the proverbial fly on the wall looking at watercolor images of Sam and Libby while listening to their discussion. Some of the illustrations are even accompanied by hand-lettered callouts describing the Sam Edelman shoes.
Overall, it’s an intriguing and personal conversation. And even though I don’t buy women’s shoes I can appreciate my fiancee’s love for this entire packaging initiative. It shows that a brand can do enough research to understand its buyers and deliver a unique product that will satisfy them and help them look beautiful.
The Takeaway
What can we learn from this?
- Consider this approach. If you wanted a job at a particular corporation, you wouldn’t just mail in your resume. You’d probably study the company’s website and annual report. Maybe you’d visit the company to see what you could learn. You would try to absorb as much as possible about the company to see how you could specifically contribute (or “add value”) to its operations. A good marketer will do this, too, even with a shoebox. Who is the client? What does the client like and dislike? What can a brand create (both product and packaging) that will please the client? In my view, these two shoeboxes reflect this kind of soul searching into what both brands can offer that is unique.
- After a brand is able to articulate the nuances of a buyer’s persona, the brand’s goal is to reflect all of this not only in the product (shoes, in this case) but also in all marketing materials, making relevant design decisions in everything from typefaces to paper choices to color. Every time the buyer interacts with the brand (through signage, a brand’s online presence, catalogs, even “frictionless” interactions with the company’s call center), the brand’s ethos must shine through. That is separate from, but intricately intertwined with, the overall quality and specific attributes of the product.
- As a marketer, it is your responsibility to initiate and maintain such a conversation with your customers.
Posted in Packaging | Comments Off on Custom Printing: A Unique Shoe (Un-)Boxing Experience
December 1st, 2022
Posted in Ceramic Printing | Comments Off on Custom Printing: A Collection of Promotional Glass-Printed Items
Photo purchased from … www.depositphotos.com
For about thirty years, I’ve believed that everything is advertising. Everything you present to someone from a business card to a mug sells your brand, broadcasting all aspects of your business from your values to your attention to detail.
That said, a physical object that your prospective client can actually use says more than just a promotional brochure on paper or an email sent to a client over the internet.
In this light, when I was casting about for a PIE Blog article subject this week, my fiancee handed me about ten printed glass bottles. They range from a milk bottle to a Whole Foods bottle promoting both Whole Foods in general and the Whole Foods Beer Market in particular.
An Antique Bottle
The Sealtest milk bottle is an antique, and for me it brings back memories of a simpler time when our milk was delivered to our door (even in our apartment building, even as late as the 1960s).
From the vantage point of a student of commercial printing and a student of graphic design and marketing, I think this is an interesting artifact for a number of reasons.
Marketing
As a marketing piece, it reflects not only the overall Sealtest brand and Sealtest’s dairy products, but it also gives a nod to the Western Maryland Dairy in Baltimore, MD. Printed notations on the bottle not only identify the dairy location but also speak to the science behind the milk product (in terms of its quality checks and its being pasteurized).
So a cursory reading of the custom printing on the bottle links healthfulness and reliability with the Sealtest brand and the Western Maryland Dairy brand. If you had been a child or adult back in the 1960s and had found this bottle outside your door, you would have relied on it as a healthful and tasty addition to your meal. Such advertising is priceless.
Printing
This bottle exemplifies custom screen printing. If I closely examine the printing with a 12x printer’s loupe, I can see that an initially thick film of ink had been applied to the bottle (presumably) 50 or 60 years ago, and that this film had been scratched away in places over these five or six decades through heavy use and overall age. To me it almost looks like pigment that was scratched off a layer of glue, and if I didn’t know better I’d assume the writing was an applique attached to the glass bottle after the molten glass had cooled. However, I know that for multiple decades custom screen printing has been the method of choice (prior to digital printing) for decorating glass.
Why? Because once the screen-printing frames have been prepared and the stencils attached to the mesh, this is the most economical way to print on glass. Also, the thickness of custom screen printing inks lends itself to rich, dynamic colors. And yet screen printing multiple colors requires a lot of make-ready. So the fact that the Sealtest bottle is printed only in the Sealtest brand color red would lend further credence to my guess that the commercial printing was done via custom screen printing (also known as serigraphy).
The bad news is that custom screen printing is ideal only when printing a few colors (and simple graphics). The good news is that it is perfect (and cheap per unit cost) for simple graphics and mid- to long-run jobs–even at the present time, and even with the availability of digital glass printing.
A Shot Glass, Frosted Absolut Glass, Two Beer Glasses, and the Whole Foods Beer Bottle
What all of these have in common, and how they differ from the Sealtest milk bottle, goes way beyond drinking milk vs. drinking alcohol, although this is a part of the story.
Marketing
Milk (and the staid nature of the branding on the bottle) is for people of all ages. It is a staple of one’s diet, and the tone of the marketing on the bottle is serious, reflecting Sealtest’s reliability and the healthful nature of the milk the bottle contains.
In contrast, the Blue Bell shot glass, with its frosted ultramarine blue background and its silhouette of a young girl in a bonnet leading a cow by a rope (plus the words Blue Bell printed below the image), suggests a transition from milk (the cow) to alcohol (the shot glass). The branding, while traditional, is more dramatic in nature, given the contrast between the ultramarine background and the white, thick, screen printed ink (this time I’m sure, because the ink is so abundant).
And there’s a little humor in custom printing milk imagery on an alcoholic shot glass. Beyond everything else, if you can make someone laugh (as a marketing professional), you have their tacit approval. You’re half way to the sale because the prospect is having fun.
The frosted Absolut glass takes the same marketing route. The vertical lines of the mixed drink glass echo the vertical lines of the Absolut Kurant Imported logo typescript. (The marketing artwork is an ad in black and purple printed on an opaque plastic applique, a bit like a shrink sleeve.) The background black script typeface and a line drawing of a leaf with currant berries make the whole glass into an advertisement. But it looks upscale, so if you’re holding the glass, you can be a part of the leisure class.
The two brown beer glasses and the Whole Foods Beer Market bottle form the final group of glassware. The background glass color is a deep brown, and there is a nice heft to all three pieces. The custom printing is all in white, except for the blue Whole Foods logo on one side of the bottle. On one of the glasses, there is a chatty tone in the printed commentary about making beer glasses out of beer bottles. On the other glass is a notation about how if you can read the type on the glass (which is upside down), then you’ve spilled your drink.
So most of this is light, chatty, and above all funny. Humor, as noted above, sells. Remarkably well.
Printing
Since all three of these final pieces were crafted close to the present time (when compared to the Sealtest bottle, the shot glass, and even the Absolut tumbler glass—presumably), it is much easier to see what techniques were used for the custom printing work. In fact, I would venture that all of them were printed via custom screen printing. Why? Again, because of the thick, rich application of ink. There is something opulent about such a generous laydown of pigment. Like butter.
What Are the Printing Options?
Here’s the rundown:
- Custom screen printing is great for printing a few colors (the beer glasses and bottle all have white ink on the brown glass).
- Screen printing is great for mid- to long-run printing. If you’re doing a short run of bottles for a craft brewery, consider UV inkjet or digital ceramic printing.
- Unfortunately, since custom screen printing is time consuming to set up, it requires long runs, and that might lead to extra storage costs (warehousing, inventory, etc.).
- Screen printing is not great for multiple colors or photo-realistic imagery.
- Screen printing is out of the question for variable data.
- UV inkjet is an ideal option for short-run, multi-color, variable-data printing on glass. The UV inks cure instantly when exposed to UV light. And you can use a non-permeable substrate (like glass).
- Unfortunately, UV ink application just sits up on the surface of the glass, so it can be scratched off over time. Longevity and hard use must be taken into consideration.
- That said, there are ways to digitally print ceramic inks on glass (containing “frit,” actual particles of glass along with the pigment). Using ceramic digital inks you can print the glass and then fire it such that the printing actually becomes a part of the glass. (The ink doesn’t just sit up on the surface of the glass as it does with UV inkjet printing.)
- When all is said and done, if you want to pursue a less high tech (and presumably less costly) route, you can always print and apply clear-backed labels. These would probably be printed via flexography (water based ink printed with rubber printing plates). Unlike screen printing inks, however, flexographic inks are not particularly opaque, dense, or rich because they are not as thick as custom screen printing inks.
The Takeaway
So at least you have some options. And, as I’ve noted regarding the various printed glass items my fiancee gave me for analysis, what you’re selling (the brand, the product) and the image you’re trying to convey will be as important in choosing a commercial printing technology as are the length of the press run, the detail in the imagery, and the number of ink colors you want to use.
Posted in Ceramic Printing | Comments Off on Custom Printing: A Collection of Promotional Glass-Printed Items
November 27th, 2022
Posted in Box Printing | Comments Off on Custom Printing: Consistent Branding in Packaging
Photo purchased from … www.depositphotos.com
Increasingly, my fiancee and I depend on products ordered online. You push a button, and the boxes show up at your door. We recognize the delivery trucks by their sound out on the neighborhood street, just like the mail truck and the garbage truck.
Amazon. UPS. These entities are their brand, and their brand comprises everything from the look of the boxes (and the imprinted logos) to the kindness of their drivers, to the color of and imprints on their uniforms.
Clearly, this is the core of the new economy: the convenience of one-click ordering plus door to door delivery. We now take it for granted.
Consistent Branding
For years my fiancee and I have received products from one of these large distributors, and for years this distributor has presented a consistent brand image in their packaging. The logo has been consistent and eminently recognizable, even from across the street. Even their logo mark (without any type) has been iconic.
All custom printing except for the brand mark (or pictorial mark) on the carton (without the name or other type) has been on the packing tape strapped across the brown corrugated cartons. Even the second color, used as a minimal highlight on the packing tape, has become immediately recognizable along with the solid brown of the corrugated packing boxes.
Just recently, however, this established brand image has changed a bit. Boxes are now printed on all surfaces with imagery and an additional logo for an upcoming movie franchise. The otherwise recognizable brown of the carton is obscured by this promotional printing. From the white of the reversed type on the box I can assume that all custom printing was done on a white press sheet that was later laminated to the corrugated board of the cartons. That said, under a 12-power printer’s loupe, the random dot pattern in the halftone images suggests to me that inkjet imaging was the chosen commercial printing technique.
Perhaps this is either a short-run test of the new packaging or even only one localized version of the box (perhaps only in my fiancee’s and my neighborhood), with other custom printing on cartons sent to other customers.
Furthermore, another package from the same distributor arrived today, promoting the same film franchise. However, in this case the background color printed on the vinyl bubble-wrap envelope is different from both the first (mustard-colored rather than various tones of brown) newer version with the “altered” print presentation (printing all over the box and a secondary logo for the film franchise) and the long-standing “look” of the original almost-blank carton. So these are relatively major graphic changes.
Why Does This Matter?
Granted, in the world as it is, this is not a crisis by any means. It is just marketing. But to me it is a curious event, based on my understanding of the goals and processes of brand maintenance.
In marketing, the goal is the immediate recognition of a brand by potential clients. If this is a new brand, such buyer recognition can only come from a certain number of exposures to the marketing image and message. (I’ve heard it’s six to ten impressions. The number is less relevant than the concept of awareness and positive associations growing organically over time and arising from the customers’ seeing consistent imagery.)
This nurturing of brand recognition in the minds of potential customers depends on consistency across a number of defined areas. Such consistency includes the treatment of the company logo (everything from colors to size to placement on a printed product), to the typefaces associated with the logo and any tagline or any other writing on the box, brochure, banner, sign, billboard, or any other printed or digitally displayed promotional piece.
But Branding Is More Than Just the Logo
Branding is more than just the logo. It is all of the intangibles linked to the logo and other related graphic presentations. From there, by association, the graphic presentation itself absorbs and then reflects the values of the brand (or corporation). Amazon, Chewy, and UPS do this beautifully.
The qualities and attributes linked to the visual depiction of their brand may include quality, responsiveness, speed, knowledge, environmental stewardship, fairness. The list goes on. When the company employees do their jobs well, compassionately, and knowledgeably, they help foster a positive customer experience. (A business-owner friend of mine also uses the term “frictionless” to suggest that it should be easy for the consumer to get what she or he needs from the corporation, or brand. That is, in his own business, my friend tries to eliminate stress for the customer within all transactions.)
In addition, the brand is reflected in the interior design of the company buildings, the signage, the customer uniforms, and especially, least I forget, both the look and the “frictionless” user experience of the website (and how successfully and seamlessly the website is linked to the physical brand presence).
As an analogy, consider Pavlov’s dog. Pavlov’s dog began to automatically salivate when he heard a bell. This was because getting his dog food and hearing the bell had been linked physiologically and psychologically because they occurred simultaneously. Once food and the bell had been linked in the mind of the dog, Pavlov could ring the bell and fido would salivate.
Branding works in much the same way. You have a great experience in the store and with the product, and you associate these with the interior design of the store, the colors, signage, logo. Once the brand values and experiences and the graphic presentation have become linked, when you see a consistent presentation of the logo and brand colors, you salivate. I mean you remember all of your good experiences with the company and you buy more product or service.
I actually understand this on a conscious level, but I also respond to it just like Pavlov’s dog because it serves my needs. I know I will get what I want from the transaction with the business.
For instance, I moved my cell phone service to Cricket from another carrier a number of years ago. On a whim, my fiancee had suggested that I visit a Cricket store when I was dissatisfied with my current carrier’s price and service. I also didn’t like the little add-ons and extra fees and taxes that drove the prior carrier’s price much higher than the advertised monthly cost.
I actually had a good experience in the Cricket store. They were helpful. The monthly cost matched exactly what Cricket had offered in its promotional literature (with no hidden fees or taxes). And now I recognize the logo and other elements of the branding wherever I see it, even from a distance while driving. And since the initial fortuitous meeting at this first Cricket outlet, every Cricket store I’ve been to for help has solved my problem (at any given moment of crisis) immediately and successfully. That is, they provided consistency and frictionlessness.
Brand Dilution
To return to the concept of brand consistency, I’m not sure I’d have the immediate recognition and positive associations with the logo and logo treatment (colors, typefaces, logo mark) if I drove past a strip mall and saw a different Cricket logo, maybe different colors, or if I received direct mail with a different logo or printing or color treatment. I’d be confused. I wouldn’t get the immediate “aha” moment (the norepinephrine, dopamine, and serotonin coursing through my brain). And the key there is immediate.
So when we look at the distributor whose boxes wind up on our porch on a regular basis, having some of them be different visually, and without even a visible link (base background color, level of simplicity vs. complexity in imagery and type treatment, etc.), this difference may cause confusion, a lack of immediate recognition of the brand and its associated attributes and values.
I call this “diluting the brand.” I even refer to it with my fiancee when we’re choosing art projects for our art therapy work, since we have a brand, too, which encompasses everything from our art projects to our billing invoices. Our goal is always to build the brand, or “burnish the brand,” as I call it, not dilute the brand.
So in the case of door-to-door delivery and the graphic treatment of the distributor’s cartons, I personally think there’s a risk of diluting a brand by presenting the logo, typeface, corporate colors, or any other aspect of the corporate “look” in different ways. Again, why? Because consistency breeds recognition, and change risks confusion (particularly change that deviates dramatically from the treatment of the prior corporate branding).
The Takeaway
No matter what you design, whether it is for the internet or for commercial printing projects, from products to promotional literature to wall signage for a store, consider how your individual item fits in graphically with everything else the company displays or sells. Think about everything as a complex system with minute interactions between each component part. But most of all, think about how all of these elements not only work together visually but more importantly how they support and reflect the core values of the brand.
Posted in Box Printing | Comments Off on Custom Printing: Consistent Branding in Packaging
November 21st, 2022
Posted in Product Design | Comments Off on Custom Printing: Consistent Color in Functional Printing
Photo purchased from … www.depositphotos.com
At the top of this article you will see a glorious photo taken at sunset. The purples and yellows are rich and vibrant. The same intensity might characterize a photo of a verdant meadow. There are certain “memory colors” that we depend on seeing. They have to be “right.” When they are not (within a certain tolerance), that’s a problem.
In this light, I am sharing this question from a product designer working with a huge American entertainment brand. His is a story about color accuracy and consistency.
Here’s the client’s question:
“How do I spec a ‘white’ for printing on a metal base material? The problem is the white roll material comes from different sources even from the same manufacturer. The base color is then the background white to our graphic. It varies from gray to pink to antique white. None of these are good. I want to spec a white color to lay down as a spot color, so I can get consistent color from factory to factory. What is the solution? FYI, what I am referring to is a slow cooker metal wrap graphic.”
I called this designer immediately, and we spoke for a half hour.
The Backstory on the Manufacturing and Custom Printing Job
The product designer noted that four separate manufacturers produced the slow cookers in China. I first asked about consolidating the vendors, since maintaining consistency when working with multiple sources is difficult. The designer said that due to budgetary constraints, using one vendor was not an option.
Among other things (such as the manufacturers’ using different inks and different colored substrates), there was one other challenge. The three manufactured and printed items would be packaged together.
This was a problem. If you look closely at printed cereal boxes next to one another in the grocery store, you’ll see that from press run to press run (and presumably from printer to printer), there’s some—or a lot of–color variance. However, once you get the cereal home and are eating it, you usually forget the slight difference in packaging color.
This is because the human brain (in most people) cannot remember color for very long. Moreover, it is usually only when two items that differ in color are side by side that the difference stands out (unless they are memory colors, as described above).
This is where we had problems. The product designer’s slow cookers were all supposed to have red printing on a consistently colored white base. Since the colors differed slightly from manufacturer to manufacturer, and since the products were packaged side by side, the color variance was visible.
What I Suggested
My suggestions to the product designer fell into a number of categories:
Technology Used
I suggested that the product designer ask what technology the four separate Chinese manufacturers were using. For instance, my expectation is that they use either inkjet printing or custom screen printing. Granted, it is possible that some other technology is being used; however, knowing exactly how the manufacturers are adding color to the base material of the slow cookers is a good start.
Types of Ink Used
From there, I encouraged the product designer to find out what inks the manufacturers are using for the custom printing. For instance, are they using UV inks, since these can be printed on non-porous substrates? Also, presumably, if one manufacturer is using custom screen printing ink and another is using UV inkjet ink, there might be a variance, particularly if one color is a solid hue and another is a color build. It would probably be helpful as well if the product designer could determine whether the inks are solvent, eco-solvent, or, as noted above, UV inks.
The White-Ink Base Printing
The product designer’s comments about the variance in the color substrate raise an interesting point. One could lay down a base of opaque white and print a red color (presumably consistent among the four vendors) on the white. But what kind of white would be chosen?
I did a quick search online for white pigment (specifically the mineral content of various white inks). This is what I found: Zinc White, Titanium Dioxide, Zinc Sulfide, Lithopone, Alumina Hydrate, Calcium Carbonate, Blanc Fixe, Barytes, talc, silica, and China Clay. All of these minerals and other substances affect the perceived color of the base-white commercial printing.
Therefore, I encouraged the product designer to research what kind of white inks the four Chinese manufacturers have been using and then ensure that these will be consistent going forward.
Specifying and Proofing Color
With all of this in mind, I told the product designer that specifying color and proofing color were important elements of standardizing the colors of future jobs.
Regarding color specification, I encouraged the product designer to start with a successfully printed sample (with the color exactly as he wants it to be) and have a local printer check the color with a spectrophotometer. Unlike a printer’s densitometer, a spectrophotometer will actually determine the base white color and red surprinting ink and quantify these in numbers that will be recognizable (and able to be copied) by different commercial printing vendors associated with different manufacturers.
In addition, when printing ink on paper, I have always trusted “drawdowns.” These are made with your chosen ink smeared on your chosen paper substrate. You don’t see the photos or the actual typeset copy of your job, but you do see how the ink itself will look on the paper you have chosen. I suggested that the product designer ask whether a similar process was available from his manufacturers.
I also suggested that the product designer request a “contract proof” (of the white background and red lettering) before the final print run. Such a proof is considered an agreement between the client and the vendor. If the final print job does not match the contract proof, the printer has to make everything right or extend a discount.
I also suggested that the product designer send all commercial printing suppliers a package containing the shrink-wrapped slow cookers side by side. If it is obvious to him that the colors are off, it should also be obvious to the four Chinese printers. And it would be a good starting point for determining the cause and successful resolution of the problem.
Color and Light in General
Just to keep the discussion lively, I reminded the product designer that color is a function of light and vision. Colors look different under different lighting conditions. (For instance, at night a red car is gray.) To complicate matters, women apparently see color better than men. And, if you look at a colored object and then cover first one eye and then the other, your two eyes will see slightly different colors (at least mine do). So color is changeable and subjective.
That said, there are two terms I shared with the product designer that reference color consistency in both the commercial arts (and custom printing) and the fine arts. They are “metamerism” and “simultaneous contrast.”
Metamerism refers to the fact that some color patches appear to be either identical to one another or different from one another depending on the ambient light. Apparently this condition is more evident in grays, whites, and dark colors (so in the product designer’s case this might be a contributing factor).
Simultaneous contrast, which is closely related, refers to the fact that certain colors placed next to one another (complementary colors, for instance) will each affect how the other is perceived (as opposed to how they look when viewed separately). This speaks to how much our eyesight affects how our brain registers color. I personally think this is interesting but not as directly pertinent to the product designer’s situation with the white metal slow cookers with surprinted red type.
The Takeaway
Regarding the product designer producing slow cookers, I really didn’t know why he was having problems. But he did leave our conversation with a systematic approach to isolating, and then identifying and potentially resolving, the problems with the inconsistent industrial printing inks.
In your own work, if you are faced with a problem like this (with either ink on paper or ink on physical products), first determine the technology and inkset being used. Then consider the substrate (and give thought to printing a layer of opaque white under all other inks to provide a consistent base color).
Use precise, generally-agreed-upon conventions to communicate color (percentage of CMYK, for instance, and maybe even readings from a printer’s spectrophotometer).
Communicate color using printed samples (your chosen ink on your chosen substrate), and when in doubt ask for an ink drawdown. In addition, always request a contract proof.
All of these approaches (and especially seeking to resolve color fidelity issues by isolating all components of the custom printing process) will go a long way towards your success in printing beautiful, consistent color, even when you need to work with multiple commercial printing vendors.
Posted in Product Design | Comments Off on Custom Printing: Consistent Color in Functional Printing
November 13th, 2022
Posted in Paper and finishing | Comments Off on Commercial Printing: Make Your Paper Swatch Books Your Second Best Friend
Photo purchased from … www.depositphotos.com
I suppose it’s better to make your spouse or significant other your best friend. But if you buy commercial printing or do graphic design for a living, it’s smart to have a paper merchant as your BFF right after your printer. A deeply knowledgeable paper merchant is a truly valuable asset.
First of all, paper is made at a limited number of mills around the world. The mill is not the paper merchant. The paper merchant is a conduit between paper mills and printers. What she or he adds to the transaction is knowledge and connections. She or he can understand your paper needs, work to find a good source, and coordinate everything with you printer. This costs nothing to you as a buyer.
What a paper merchant offers on a physical level that you might want to request is a collection of paper swatch print books. I have about fifteen corrugated paper swatch book cartons (display boxes) upstairs that include the following: stationery papers, coated paper stocks and uncoated paper stocks, digital paper stocks (specifically suited to inkjet and laser printing), text stocks in various intense colors that might be good for a special invitation (see the colorful photo above), and cover stocks paired with text stocks (so I can better decide what cover paper is right for a print book or annual report).
I’m sure I’ve missed some, or a lot, but you get the idea. Ask your paper merchant (or your commercial printing supplier, if you don’t yet have a paper merchant) for a comprehensive supply of these kinds of sample books, and then purge and replace them every so often, based on the date (ask your paper merchant her or his advice about paper swatch book replacement). Think of these as Pantone Matching Books but for paper (color, surface coatings, brightness, whiteness, weight, caliper, etc.) rather than for ink hues.
In my own case I have to admit that my collection of paper swatch books is out of date. Therefore, I only use the books to specify paper qualities, not brands. This is because specific brands of specific categories of paper come and go.
So it’s important to have current paper swatch books if you do graphic design for a living, but you can see why even out-of-date paper books are useful.
Two Sample Paper Swatch Books
Downstairs in my office I have two paper swatch books for immediate access. They are approximately 5.5” x 8.5”, perfect bound, with a crisp vertical press score running parallel to the binding. Both are from Sappi (one of the owners of paper mills). I believe it used to be called Warren, back in the day, until Sappi bought Warren.
On the cover, one book notes “Lustro,” and the other notes “Opus.” These are two paper lines produced by Sappi. Lustro is a #1 sheet (the brightest possible, also called premium). I believe it is bleached during its manufacture to increase its brightness, which refers to the amount of light a paper reflects. One hundred percent would be the highest. Current online information for Sappi Opus notes that it is 94 bright. The cover of the book notes that this is a #2 stock.
Whiteness, on the other hand, refers to the quality (as opposed to the amount) of reflected light. You may refer to a blue-white (or solar-white) sheet vs. a yellow-white, natural, or warm-white sheet. If you read the paper swatch books, you’ll come upon such language.
Keep in mind that blue-white paper appears brighter than natural white or yellow-white paper (and may be a bit hard on the eyes for extended passages of text). Then again, paper affects what’s printed on it, and a cream, natural, or warm-white shade will add its yellow-white tone to the transparent inks printed on it. In short, you may not like the flesh tones if you print people’s faces on a warm-white stock.
All of this can be physically seen, as well as described (along with numbers from various paper quality scales) in the text of these paper swatch books.
To return to the samples, Opus is a #2 grade of paper as opposed to Lustro, which is a #1 sheet (although I don’t see it online, so I believe it may have been discontinued—another good reason to stay current). In my experience #1 sheets are 96 bright or higher, so the 94 specification for Opus is consistent with its being noted as a #2 sheet on the cover of the paper swatch book.
To put this in context, the brightness numbering convention goes even further down to #4 or #5 sheets, many of which have impurities that will make them last a much shorter time before decomposing. Their brightness numbers would be closer to 74-79 for a #4 sheet and 69 to 74 for a #5 sheet (according to Wikipedia). These look a bit dingy when compared to brighter sheets.
Personally, I think the numbers themselves are less important than their relative comparison. Moreover, a #4 or #5 sheet isn’t a bad sheet for a web-offset-printed auto parts catalog for a mechanic, something that doesn’t have to look pristine or last a long time. I just wouldn’t use these papers for an annual report.
On the bright side (no pun intended), a premium sheet costs more than a lower-number sheet (#4, #5, commodity, etc.). Also, if the paper swatch book uses words like “free-sheet,” you know that the paper is of good quality because this means it is free of impurities.
Paper Surface Coating
Lustro lists the following as optons for surface coating (the clay—and other components—that comprise the liquid surface coating applied to the paper). This makes ink sit up on the surface of the press sheet rather than seep into the paper fibers. This is called “holdout,” and it is what allows for crisp, colorful photos. Newsprint paper would be the opposite, an uncoated sheet that soaks up the ink like a sponge. Photos get muddy and lack detail. Photo halftone screens must be coarse (like 85-line) for newsprint rather than 133-line and above for a nice coated sheet.
In the paper swatch books, Lustro is noted as being available as patina, dull, dull cream, and gloss, while Opus is noted as having the following options: matte, dull, and gloss.
What does this mean? A dull coating is smooth and flat but not as smooth as a gloss coating. It actually scatters reflected light and therefore makes reading text easy on the eyes compared to gloss. However, photos don’t jump out as much as they do on gloss coated paper. If your book is heavy on text, your readers will thank you for a dull sheet. In my experience, matte is just a less expensive dull with a slightly rougher texture (actually a slightly less even surface coating). To refer back to whiteness specifications noted above, dull cream is a yellow-white version of Lustro Dull.
Extra Coatings
The additional coatings (gloss vs. dull varnish) noted in the paper swatch books are actually applied on the commercial printing press (in contrast to the original surface coatings, which have already been applied when your printer buys the paper).
That said, both of the Sappi paper swatch print books show a portion of the main sample photo coated with gloss varnish, dull varnish, and then no varnish. In this particular case, in the Lustro book, there is a glamour shot of a model printed across sample sheets of patina, dull, dull cream, and gloss paper, with each sheet sticking out slightly beyond the prior one (for comparison). The varnish, as noted above, coats the image in horizontal strips from the top to the bottom of the page. Sappi noted that the image is printed in 4-color process ink (i.e., no extra colors; plus all process colors are transparent, unlike some other inks).
Paper Weight
Paper sample books include swatches of all available paper weights, both cover and text. This is useful for two reasons. It shows you, without guessing, exactly how thick each sheet at a particular weight will be (since they vary from manufacturer to manufacturer and from paper to paper, even if the specification numbers are the same).
This way you can choose from a sample piece of paper rather than a reference number online or in a print book. Moreover, you can better pair a cover weight sheet with a text weight sheet. You can even ask your paper merchant for a paper dummy (an unprinted copy of a sample book made up with your chosen papers). This way you’ll know exactly how a print book of a particular length will look and feel before it has been printed and delivered.
The Takeaway
What can we learn from this? First of all (do as I say, not as I do), keep your paper book collection current. It will be easier to communicate with your printer. Failing that, use old paper books to only determine specifications, not brands. For instance, with my old books I can still see how a 100# cover sheet and a 100# text sheet for a book will look and feel with a dull, matte, or gloss coating. Then I can ask for brand suggestions and request a paper dummy.
If, on the other hand, you have a current set of paper swatch books, you can select a particular name brand, ask for that or comparable, and, even more importantly, you can see how a 4-color photo will look on the paper stock with a dull, gloss, or no varnish.
All of this will help you visualize the final product and even feel it in your hands. Neither of these can be done if all you have are the reference numbers online for paper brightness, whiteness, finish (the dull or gloss spec), and caliper (thickness at a specific paper weight). Trust your hands and eyes first. But do look at the paper books under various lighting conditions, such as sunlight (5000 degrees Kelvin, like the pressroom observation booths) and maybe incandescent, tungsten, and fluorescent light as well.
Posted in Paper and finishing | Comments Off on Commercial Printing: Make Your Paper Swatch Books Your Second Best Friend
November 6th, 2022
Posted in Large-Format Printing | 2 Comments »
Photo purchased from … www.depositphotos.com
When I was a consultant working with a large Washington, DC, magazine publisher, one of my tasks was to coordinate the commercial printing and installation of a huge banner (an inkjet printed cover of one of the company’s magazines). I also helped the printer with the installation.
I’m a great believer in learning on the job. Just as it didn’t hurt to learn how to use motorized pallet loaders, plastic skid wrapping, and industrial freight elevators when my fiancee and I were doing freelance display installations for Chanel, neither did it hurt to help install a three-story-high banner on the side of the magazine publisher’s exterior wall.
This is what I learned. Hopefully it will help you in your custom printing work.
Design Considerations
First I had to find a vendor. Not all vendors produce large-format print graphics. In this category I include all forms of inkjet work produced on either flatbed printers (for rigid substrates) or roll-fed printers.
Fortunately most inkjet printers include large inksets (cyan, magenta, yellow, black, sometimes a second black, sometimes light cyan and light magenta, sometimes white, sometimes red, blue, and green, or even orange and purple). The goal is this. The more additional colors beyond the traditional CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) color set, the wider the color gamut and the more individual hues (such as specific corporate colors) you can match. So if you need to select a large-format print shop, I’d encourage you to approach a dedicated sign-maker or ask a trusted commercial printing supplier for a referral. Referrals go a long way in ensuring product quality, vendor skill, and deadline reliability.
Regarding technical specifications, consider size and resolution. For a large-format print image, you don’t need 300 dpi resolution if your banner will be three stories high. This would create an unnecessarily large (and time-consuming to print) art file. From a distance, your eye is perfectly fine with 80 dpi, or whatever else your printer suggests. (So ask him specifically.)
Presumably he will want a PDF file (not InDesign or Photoshop) of the job. But you should ask about the overall size. Most probably he will ask you to make the banner file the exact size of the final art (to avoid needing to enlarge the artwork when printing). He will probably also ask you to embed the fonts in the file or, more likely, to convert the type into outlines. He will definitely ask for files in CMYK format rather than RGB format. (If he does accept RGB files, he will still need to convert them to CMYK files on his end, so it’s best for you to make the shift before submitting the file so you can see how this will affect the overall color.)
What Will You Print On?
If your banner will be hung indoors, you might consider some kind of fabric (maybe for a table throw, interior wall banner, or roll-up banner stand). But for the kind of exterior banner I needed to provide to my consulting client, vinyl was the best choice. After all, it had to withstand the elements (sun, rain, and wind), which are very hard on a banner.
In this case I had the vendor stitch together the sections of the huge magazine-cover photo image, since the final banner was larger than the 16-foot width of many grand-format, roll-fed, inkjet printing machines. The vendor also hemmed the edges of the banner to improve durability, and added metal grommets along the edges to accept the rope for tying the banner to the side of the building.
Inks were also a consideration. Dye-based inks are more vibrant than pigment-based inks (solutions of water and dye molecules rather than larger particles of pigment suspended in liquid). However, dye-based inks are less weather resistant. More than likely, your printer will suggest a solvent-based, eco-solvent-based, or even UV ink that will tolerate rain and sunlight (which otherwise will cause the color in the inkjet inks to fade).
Be specific when talking with your custom printing vendor about whether your product will be an exterior banner, a bus or car wrap, or a billboard. You may also want to ask about lamination to increase durability, depending on what inks and substrate your printer will use. How long you will need the banner to be outside will also make a difference (three days, three months, three years). Solvent-based inks have the greatest longevity, eco-solvent inks slightly less, and water-based inks least of all. Unfortunately, the most durable inks also pose the largest health and environmental concerns.
Accounting for Wind
Wind does interesting things to banners. When I was hanging the banner on my client’s building with the sign manufacturer, I was struck by how even a gentle wind would catch the vinyl banner like a sail. To keep such a large banner from taking flight, the banner vinyl is often slashed in a regular (often curved, like horizontal “C’s”) pattern. The wind just travels through the vinyl material, and the pattern of slashes is minimal enough to not really compromise the overall look of the banner from a distance.
Interestingly enough, a similar technique is often used for large-format banners that cover windows in buses (or that cover vendor shop windows). These are called 60/40 mesh banners. (I have also seen them outside on fences, so the breeze travels through 60/40 mesh as well.) When a banner or bus wrap has been printed on 60/40 mesh, from a distance the eye sees the portion of the image that is printed and doesn’t really notice the matrix of regularly-spaced holes with no commercial printing ink.
But again, even though it can be used to reduce wind interference, 60/40 mesh is primarily a way to allow bus riders to look out the windows and those outside the bus to just see the banner wrapped around the vehicle.
Two More Considerations
Large-format graphics such as my client’s three-story banner may also show up as billboards, depending on how they are designed and positioned. Interestingly enough, one of the considerations for such a banner is viewing angle.
From a marketing perspective, it’s important to get the attention of the viewer when she or he is driving (especially true for a billboard but also true for a building wrap). In my client’s case, the front of the building was at a 45 degree angle to the road and right next to it. So it was visible for a number of seconds to those driving by.
In contrast, a banner facing a road or highway at a 90 degree angle might be missed, or it might be seen only for an instant. You may want to think about this, and ensure that the viewer gets as long an exposure to the image as possible. Of course this is also why you want to only include a few words on the banner along with a striking image. (Don’t make the viewer take more than an instant to process the information while driving.)
This is relevant in terms of safety as well. If the banner faces the street at a 90 degree angle, and the person driving looks away from the road to see the banner, she or he will be at serious risk.
Final Thoughts
So, as with most other printed products, a large-format print banner (whether a building wrap, a bus or car wrap, or a 60/40 banner covering a store window) has both a design component and a functional, production component.
The best large-format graphics make a dramatic statement with only a few words and a striking image in brilliant color. They don’t make the viewer take more than an instant to process the information. But it’s also important to consider the best vendor for such a job, as well as the proper inkset (both the hue and the ink formulation, whether dye-based, eco-solvent, UV, or solvent), file resolution, and document size.
Your printer is your best ally in helping you get this kind of work done.
Posted in Large-Format Printing | 2 Comments »