It’s best to consider this when your logo is first designed if at all possible. In most cases, embroiderers require a clean, vector version of your logo- free of gradients and fine lines. I approach logo design with all type of applications in mind.

I begin with vector.

Vector art is designed in a manner that is highly reproducible. Raster art, like photographs is made up of tiny blocks of color. When those blocks are greatly increased in size, you will begin to see jaggedness to your image. We’ve all seen this before. With vector art, the lines and curves are actually mathematically calculated. You have two points with a line or curve in between and the program calculates the exact dimensions and curvature. Therefore, with vector art, when you increase the size -even to fit the side of a blimp – it will be perfectly clear because the program recalculates the math to your new dimensions. This precise approach allows an embroidery machine to most accurately reproduce your logo.

I also begin my logo designs in black only.

It has been said that if your logo looks great in just black it will look great no matter what. There is some truth to that. Narrowing the color to just black causes a designer (and a client) to focus on the actual design of a logo. Forcing them to create solutions that will stand up no matter what the situation is. Have you ever seen a logo used in a way that was not appealing or easy to read? If so, I’m willing to bet they didn’t start with a black only logo. The other bonus to beginning this way is that you will have an advantage when it comes to the number of colors in printing or embroidery. You will be able to embroider it in a single color that compliments your product. Say your company logo is blue and black. Blue lettering might not look good on a black shirt, and the black lettering would be lost completely…vice versa on a blue shirt. With a one color logo option, white lettering would look great on either color, be highly readable and would still keep with your corporate colors!

This doesn’t mean you can’t have your logo with all of the bells and whistles. By beginning with a basic black vector design and elaborating from there, you end up with a logo that will be reproducible in a variety of uses. After all, if you are going to pay for a logo to brand your company, it would be a shame to have to redesigned it or be forced to deviate from your branding image when you come across a situation where it doesn’t work!

Post written by KRSmith at www.khrysser.com.

ABOUT PROJECTCENTER:

ProjectCenter is a single-source service company providing marketing and document solutions to small, medium and large-sized businesses in the U.S. area. ProjectCenter is based in Phoenix, Arizona and its services include graphic design, web design, printing, copying, scanning and mailing. For more information, please call (602) 252-6655 or visit www.makepapereasy.com.

I was fortunate enough to get into a music convention/trade show a couple of weekends ago. I met a lot of musicians like Michael Anthony of Van Halen, Dave Mustaine of Megadeth, Doug Aldrich of Whitesnake, Warren Demartini and Bobby Blotzer from Ratt, Mick Mars from Motley Crue, Alex Skolnick and Eric Peterson from Testament, Lemmy and Micky Dee from Motorhead, Nicko McBrain from Iron Maiden, etc.

Let’s face the fact that all these guys run a business like anyone else. Thus, you can see that they have lived off their brands and logos for some time. Think about Van Halen’s VH with wings or Iron Maiden’s logo and their mascot Eddie or Megadeth’s logo and mascot Vic Rattlehead. 

I was surprised by the fact that individual musicians did not have their own logos. Consider all the musicians that are sort of free agents in the music world, but have made quite a name for themselves, such as Billy Sheehan, Sheila E, Joe Satriani, Steve Vai. If these folks had a logo, it certainly wasn’t evident. Even MMA fighters such as Bas Rutten have their own logo, so why wouldn’t these talented musicians have one. I am guessing that they feel their name is enough, but it just seems like they are doing themselves a diservice by not supporting their brand identity with an individual logo.

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This may sound like I am talking about making a family crest, which is not a bad idea for the purpose of fun and family pride, but the real purpose of this idea came to me from a client.

A client called us stating that they were making a family logo, which I immediately thought was for fun, but discovered later that it was for security reasons. The client did not want his name shown on the return address of the envelopes he was sending out.

That is a good tactic if you think about. I already shred all mail received that has any combination of my family’s names, addresses and/or important numbers (i.e. credit cards, accounts, etc.). I, of course, immediately started working on my family logo.

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Some might find this information a bit obvious. Of course, you can convert Publisher to PDF if you own both programs, but that is the problem. Some graphics people in the printing industry do not own Publisher. They don’t have any use for it since their operations are based on an Adobe environment. The solution to that issue is an online file conversion tool.

Check it out: http://www.zamzar.com/

ABOUT PROJECTCENTER:

ProjectCenter is a single-source service company providing marketing and
document solutions to small, medium and large-sized businesses in the
U.S. area. ProjectCenter is based in Phoenix, Arizona and its services
include graphic design, web design, printing, copying, scanning and
mailing. For more information, please call (602) 252-6655 or visit
www.makepapereasy.com.

I had to write the blog just so that I could keep track of the information, and good information it is. Another blogger does the research for us. Check out http://loremipsumblvd.com/blog/2008/12/23-quality-free-stock-photography-sites/.

ABOUT PROJECTCENTER:

ProjectCenter is a single-source service company providing marketing and document solutions to small, medium and large-sized businesses in the U.S. area. ProjectCenter is based in Phoenix, Arizona and its services include graphic design, web design, printing, copying, scanning and mailing. For more information, please call (602) 252-6655 or visit  www.makepapereasy.com.

Slow down Cowboy! I am not talking about what you think I am. Get yer mind out of the gutter.

When I refer to PMS, I am talking about the Pantone Matching System. Pantone, Inc. (www.pantone.com) is a company that creates color, so to speak. In technology, as an example, there are many standards such as IEEE, USB, 802.11 and so on. In the marketing and design industry, Pantone acts as the standard language for color across the world. They create the colors, code them with numbers, manufacturer to color tools like color wheels, etc. Some industries that use color in a critical sense are digital technology, fashion, home, plastics, architecture, contract interiors and paint.

Obviously, this is used in printing as well. Especially amongst larger companies, color for branding purposes becomes important. When these companies deliver a graphic design that needs to be printed, it is common for them to supply PMS color numbers. When these number are supplied, the printer needs to match these colors in the print process. If not, the work becomes garbage.

ABOUT PROJECTCENTER:

ProjectCenter is a single-source service company providing marketing and document solutions to small, medium and large-sized businesses in the U.S. area. ProjectCenter is based in Phoenix, Arizona and its services include graphic design, web design, printing, copying, scanning and mailing. For more information, please call (602) 252-6655 or visit  www.makepapereasy.com.

This is really a classic issue that happens in any sales environment, so I felt the need to share it:

A client made a request for 1000 flyers, specifically sighting quality as their main motive. They wanted sales slicks that would represent them at a well-known trade show, so they wanted magazine quality work. The price quoted was around $200, to which they replied they wanted to see the price of a job quoted on a copier, which immediately contradicted their quality motive. 

The price for the copier job turned out to be around $300. What??? The client couldn’t understand why the something of lower quality would be higher in price. We explained that while copier prices remain the same price per unit, the offset printing price per unit goes down as the quantity goes up. Not believing us, the client then bid us out on the job, only to find out that we were right on target.

Two weeks later, due to them waiting for their “cheap” graphic designer to complete the artwork, they came back asking for 100 units of the flyers. The price for printing was around $100, and the price for copy work was around $50. Again, the client was dismayed. “Why is the copy price lower than the print price this time?”. We had to reiterate that the price per unit for printing goes down as the quantity goes up, which would suggest that the price per unit goes up when the quantity goes down.

So the client wanted to see a sample of the copy work, but they were not satisfied with the quality. At the same time, they did not want to pay $40 more for the offset printing quality. 

We asked them, out of curiousity, what they paid their graphic designer for the artwork, and they said $150. We told them we could have gotten that artwork done for them in one hour, and we charge around $70-$80 per hour. The math: $150 – $80 = $70 saved. That savings would have nearly paid for their print job.

ABOUT PROJECTCENTER:

ProjectCenter is a single-source service company providing marketing and document solutions to small, medium and large-sized businesses in the U.S. area. ProjectCenter is based in Phoenix, Arizona and its services include graphic design, web design, printing, copying, scanning and mailing. For more information, please call (602) 252-6655 or visit www.makepapereasy.com.

When making and printing packaging, such as display boxes, there are some certain terms that one needs to know. These terms are for the communication between the seller, a die-cutting firm and designer, and not so important to the print. A printer will simply print whatever is needed on to sheets of cardstock, that then gets turned over to a die-cutter that cuts, scores, glues and folds to spec. If the designer and the die-cutter do not communicate, and the specs are not exact (i.e. a measurement or the artwork is millimeters off target), the project will become waste. Once the package is assembled, it will become quite clear that something is not right (i.e. the design is not positioned correctly or the box is not geometrically sound).

Now for the first term- Pylocks. Unfortunately, a photo can not be supplied here. 

As an example, if you take a box of pain relievers off the shelf of a grocery store, look at the lid of the box.  Opening the lid, you will see that the lid has a lip. Between the lip and the “top” of the box, there are slits on either side. These slits are the Pylocks that allow the lid to naturally lock with the underlying flaps.

ABOUT PROJECTCENTER:

ProjectCenter is a single-source service company providing marketing and document solutions to small, medium and large-sized businesses in the U.S. area. ProjectCenter is based in Phoenix, Arizona and its services include graphic design, web design, printing, copying, scanning and mailing. For more information, please call (602) 252-6655 or visit  www.makepapereasy.com or follow us at http://twitter.com/ProjectCenter.

RGB is for viewing and CMYK is for printing.

Color Modes and When to Use Them:

Bitmap: 1-bit color. Pixels are either black or white. Good for simple line art with no shades of gray, no fuzzy edges. If you are saving to EPS format, remember to check for “Transparent Whites” if you want the black areas to be solid but the background to be “clear.” Be VERY careful messing with the Halftone Screens. If you want a cool T-shirt, silk screen effect, go for it, otherwise be prepared to see you work mangled beyond belief. To make this format more workable, you can convert it to Grayscale (then to duotone, or CMYK or RGB, etc.). If you have something in another format you have to convert it to Grayscale first, then Bitmap will become an option. Bitmaps are good for line art, doesn’t always need trapping, and can be colorized in programs like PageMaker into solid inks.

Grayscale: 8-bit color. Pixels can be black, white, or any one of 256 shades of gray. Good for black and white photos and illustrations. Full color images can easily be converted to grayscale for publication. (But if you want to see a full color–CMYK or RGB image as a grayscale, without actually converting it.

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Helvetica and Arial- two reasonably good san serif fonts that are often mistaken for one another. Here are a few hints to keeping them separate in your mind.

A little bit of history to begin with:

Helvetica was born in Switzerland in the 1950s. Created by the Haas Foundry, it was quickly adopted as the “new modern and clean” typeface of the corporate world.

More people have PCs than Macs and suddenly Arial is more popular than the “original” Helvetica.

Some other tips:

-The capital C in Helvetica has horizontal cusp ends. Arial’s are angled.

-The capital R in Helvetica has a curled leg. Arial has a straighter (though variable weight) leg.

-The lowercase t in Helvetica’s top is straight. Arial’s is trimmed at an angle.

-The number 1 in Helvetica has a flat underside to its “nose.” Arial is a simple stroke.

-The ampersand in Helvetica has a slightly taller end arm. Arial’s is a snip tighter.

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So many people want to set their sights on online printing. Reasonably, clients find the idea of online printing more efficient and easier. Why should a client have to talk to someone? Why not load up some artwork and press a “submit” button?

This experience sounds wonderful, but what happens when the client doesn’t send the files in the right format, or provides files that are inherently flawed? Depends on the printer, but some will just print what they receive and blame it on the provider (a.k.a. the client). Some will do the right thing, and work with the client.

Printers like the online world because it allows them to put the responsibility on the buyer. The problem here is that there is still such an incredible lack of  knowledge of the print world that it is ridiculous to put the blame on the buyer. As an example, there is still a vast amount pf people that believe that they can create artwork in any software and expect it to print with quality. This myth alone creates around 50% of the printing problems today.

Companies that care about their marketing should strongly consider having a graphic artist, print broker and/or tested printer to help them along with their projects, rather than settling for the online experience.

Check out ProjectCenter’s services at www.makepapereasy.com.

Rumor has it that, at the very least, information about the new version of Photoshop (Photoshop CS3) will be on the Adobe website (www.adobe.com) on September 23rd.

Check out ProjectCenter at www.makepapereasy.com.