Branding on Social Media

Social media is a trend that is not slowing down in the branding world.  Almost everyone is using one type of social media.  Not everyone has signed  on to social media but they have utilized social media almost every day.  Creating a company page is another way to advertise your brand.

Before  you jump into creating several social media pages and posting random tweets or comments on Facebook, think about how your business wants to use social media.  Identify what you intend to achieve with each social media outlet.  Facebook could be used for customer service comments and Twitter can be used to express your industry expertise.  Even if your business is not ready to go ahead for a  social media campaign ,  create a page in each social media outlet to claim your business name.   You don't want to wait to sign up and then have your business name taken.

Try to be consistent with using social media outlets.   Try to interaction with your followers as much as possible to engage them in your brand.   Be careful on the content you publish, if your company is a longstanding traditional brand, don't post something that  is not consistent with the way your business operates. 

Remember to post on a regular schedule.   By jumping into social media outlet and then not posting or replying to followers can potentially hurt your brand.   The more your business brand displays on  computer, ipad or phone screens,  the more your brand is being instilled in your followers minds.

Visit us at www.austinmmp and like us on our Facebook page.

Turn your Office Place into a Green Environment

We all have heard of “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle”.   This may be easy to do at home but harder to accomplish in the workplace.   However, if you are able to make your marketing material green than there is a chance you might attract a variety of customers by advertising with the green approach.

Reduce -- If your habit includes sending emails, internet new articles, projects to the printer to have  a hard copy of then you may want to change your habits.  Although it is important to see how the product will actually look on paper, employees tend to print unnecessary documents.  Encourage employees to limit clicking the print button.

Reuse and Recycle  -- Do you have left over letterhead, flyers or other materials that are not used anymore?   Before tossing them, think of ways to reuse this paper.   Create a bin for paper that can be used again.  Put back in the printer to print on other side.   Use this paper as scrap note paper.  See if the staff can come up with creative ways to reuse paper.  

Many customers appreciate hearing about what your business is doing to help the environment.   Be honest of your recycling practices that you have established.  They may be no brainer practices, but is can be easy to embellish your recycling practice. 

Planning for Successful Project

Planning is important for a business to be success.  A well detailed plan can fail if not executed successfully.   Here are some tips to keep in mind:

Communicate to employees what is the most important to accomplish by prioritizing goals.  Don't have employees spend too much time on things that do have much impact on the end result.

Setup procedures for keeping everyone updated about problems and progress.  Not every issue needs to be shared, however, let people know what questions and information they should bring to you and who else needs to be informed.  Establish a time line to review progress on a regular basis for all large and small projects.

Document what decisions were made and what actions were taken for large projects.  So when the project comes around again, you can be better prepared to avoid mistakes or misunderstandings. Evaluate the project if needed, discuss on what the team achieved and what process needs to be changed.

Visit us online www.austinmmp.com and like us on Facebook.

Social Media and Customer Feedback

Most consumers are connected in social media in at least one way if not more. Your business will get positive and negative feedback from customers so you will need to understand how to respond strategically to their feedback.

When you joined a social media, were you thinking you might be putting your business at risk. Being open to customer feedback on Facebook or Twitter can help your business.

Customers want to interact with you on social media. It is great to get positive feedback for the attention. Keep in mind negative comments still can have value when your response is appropriate.

If a customer has a negative comment to make about your business, let them say it. You should respond to the negative comment appropriately. You might be surprised when you find loyal customers coming to your defense.

The rules for responding to complaints on social media is the same as in person. Review the complaint and then look into the situation. Respond right away if you plan on responding on social media. Handling negative feedback on social media well, could turn into a positive. Customers and prospects may be impressed on how your business handled the comment.

Keep an eye on your business’s social media properties so you can turn a bad customer experience into a sales opportunity.

Visit us on Facebook and check out our website www.austinmmp.com

Facebook's EdgeRank Algorithm

EdgeRank promotes brand pages based on the number of interactions such as comments, likes, and shares a page or post receives.  Posts with more interactions tend to be ranked high by this algorithm and is then displayed to the people who like the page.  Posts that have less comments, likes or shares might not be ranked high in this algorithm.   EdgeRank algorithm is specific to Facebook users who have their news feed settings set to Sort By Top Stories.   Sort By Top Stories is the default setting of Facebook.  When a Facebook user has their news feed set to Sort By Most Recent, they do not have to worry about the EdgeRank algorithm.   The setting Sort By Most Recent allows users to see all of their friends' and liked brands' posts since they are posted in chronological order.

Here are a couple of ideas on how to get your brand's posts to show up in your fan's news feeds:

- Interaction with your own posts by creating dialogue.  These posts will appear in your fan's news feeds.
- Respond within the first hour of your new post.   Majority of post interactions occur the first hour of a post.
- Mix up your post feeds with videos, photos, link to relevant articles.   Don't use the same posting style.
- Ask a question or encourage opinions on a subject in a post.   This makes it easier for your posts to be viewed and ranked important by EdgeRank.
 - Keep posts short.  Don't post a long paragraph, people will be bored.  

Remember, engage with your Facebook friends' and interact with them online to get your posts visibility and relevant.

Back to the Business Basics

Many business owners have wisely spent time and money to keep their business name out there for the buying public.  With everyone working on their SEO program, having a presence with LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, attending networking events and happy hours, you may find yourself saying "Am I doing all I can?" 

Remember the basics of running a business.  Do not overlook how your staff is answering incoming phone calls, email responses and greeting customers.

Answering the phone by saying "ABC Company" isn't the way to answer the phone.  Saying "Good morning, this is ABC Company" is a more professional way to answer.  It is up to the office manager or business owner to ensure your staff is properly trained on answering phone calls. 

Review your companies email policy.  Does the staff respond to emails within a reasonable time?  Is the reply email worded in a professional manner?  Keep in mind the written words should be written as if the person is in front of you. 

How does your staff greet customers?  As soon as a customer walks into your business, greet them with at least a "Hello" to acknowledge you know they are there.  Your staff may not be able to assist them right away so have a policy for these situations.  If a customer is not greeted professionally they could walk right out your door, therefore, you probably lost a sale and potential customer.

Customers come to your business for your expertise.    Each business and profession has different terminology.   Do not assume your customers know all about your business terminology and processes. Remind your staff that they may need to talk in more basic terms when explaining a project with customers.   People in nature are sometimes afraid to admit they are not familiar with a process.      Customers will appreciate your staff taking to time to explain your business terminology or  showing them the process.

No Cost Tips to Market Your Business

Attend networking meetings and event to meet potential customers.  Be present when you attend networking meetings and talk positively about your company.

Networking groups allow you to meet other companies you can partner up with that might complement your business.   A joint venture with another company will get publicity from your current customers and you will be able to hopefully benefit from attention from their customers. 

Having a strong presence with Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter does not cost anything.  Once these online tools are in place, it will help with your SEO ranking of your website.

Network groups are always looking for speakers to talk about a variety of topics.   This is a great opportunity for you to introduce your business to a small group of potential customers.    Share some educational aspect of your business to the group.   

Show a little gratitude to your current customers.   Sending a thank you note to show them you appreciate them as a customer.    This may help promote your brand positively.   These customers are then more likely to talk about your business positively within their own networking groups.

Managing Your Time Wisely

Running a successful business makes it important to effectively manage your time.  If your business is does not manage the office time wisely, how can customers rely on you to help them get their jobs done in time?  Here are a few ideas how to make managing time less stressful and more productive:

Create a written to-do list.  Write down everything you need to complete for each project or daily activities.   Try not to create a mental list since this may add to being overwhelmed when items are forgotten mid-day.  Crossing tasks off as they are completed will help you feel a sense of accomplishment. The crossed off tasks can give you a status overview of your day or a project.

After the to-do list has been created, rearrange the tasks by priority.  Put the time-consuming and most difficult tasks as the first items.  People tend to be more efficient in the morning.  Your time will be managed better by completing the most difficult or time-consuming tasks before you start to feel fatigued later in the day.

Some people work better with deadlines.   If you fall into this category, move your deadline time up by 30 minutes to 1 hour.   This gives you a time to strive for and gives you a little freedom if you need extra time without missing the deadline.

Limit your urge to multitask when in stressful situations. Mistakes can happen if trying to multitask, focus on finishing one to-do task before starting another task.

 On the days you don't complete your list, try to identify what was holding you back from completing more items on the list.  Was the priority order wrong,  too many phone call interruptions or issues out of your control?   Stay calm and figure out how to fix these distractions for the following day.

Managing your time will help your business operations run smoother and customers will notice and appreciate the good service.

How to Handle Charitable Donation Requests

Donating your services or products to a charitable organization is a good way to give back to the community and effective way to build your company's relationships.   As you would like to say yes to all request, it is just not possible.   Here are a some ways your company can handle these request:

Create a dedicated page on your website to handle charitable contribution request.   You can direct visitors to a specific page to submit a form request.  This form allows you to setup an automated response email for every submitted form request. 

This dedicated page can also contain your step-by-step procedures for handling charitable donation requests.   For example, once a form is submitted, it goes to a committee for review and then the organization will be notified whether or not their request can be fulfilled.

This page is a good place to highlight all the charitable organizations and events you have already sponsored.   Include testimonials from the organizations you have supported on this page.   Showcasing your contributions will show the community how supportive and involved you are which will strengthen your brand and reputation. 

Preparing Files for Print

Setting up your files properly for print can save yourself and your printer from getting a headache, and will help your prints come out in a quick and timely manner. I'm sure nothing is more inconvenient for you than having your files stuck in the Proof process because your files were not set up properly.

There are some things to do, though, to make sure that your files will print just as you want them. You may have noticed in some of my earlier posts that I try to stress the importance of images being 300dpi and in CMYK. If you're unsure of the resolution of your image, you can either test print in on your own printer, or you can open it in Photoshop. If at any point you remember sizing UP your image, it will probably be low resolution.

It is also very important to make sure your file is in CMYK. This is also something that I have mentioned in a earlier post, but if your images have Pantones or is in RGB, digital printers (which print in CMYK) will convert those colors to their CMYK equivalent. There are true conversion values, but the printer itself, when converting, takes a guess.

Most of them time we do not have all of them typefaces that you are using, so when we open your files in our programs we lose all your typefaces. There is a couple ways around this: if you are sending a file in it's original format (InDesign, Illustrator, etc) you can send in your typefaces as well (Refer back to Sharing InDesign Files on packaging images and fonts). This is extremely helpful for both parties, because then we have the ability to change information in your file without you having to worry about fixing it yourself and then resending it. Remember, most of the time we are still able to open and edit PDFs. The second way, in Illustrator and InDesign, is to outline the fonts. In order to do that, simply highlight all of your text, and in the menu bar go to Text and select Create Outlines. If you set your type in Photoshop, well, just hope for the best.
Make sure your margins are correct (Refer to Margins and Bleeds)! The preferred margin size is a fourth of an inch (.25) away from the edge of the page, but absolutely NO LESS than an eighth of an inch (.125). This is especially helpful when pages inevitably shift while going through the printer and when it is necessary to give booklets a face trim.

If your file has bleeds (which means the color goes all the way to the edge) be sure to export your file WITH the bleed settings. When you click Save As, the Export Adobe PDF window will pop up, and under Bleed and Slug, make sure you select the Use Document Bleed Settings box.

This will make it so when we print and cut down your piece there will be no white lines around the edge. It is not necessary to have the crop and bleed marks in your file, but at the same time it doesn't hurt. You can find those in the same area as the bleed settings, but under the Marks section.

If your file does NOT have bleeds, then that step is not necessary, and simply exporting to PDF will do just fine. But still be sure to double check that everything else that was mentioned is correct.

Finishing Techniques

These finishing techniques are common not only with business cards, but with anything from book covers, to package design, to even wrapping papers. Each of them make your product appealing in its own way, not to mention the combination possibilities are endless!


Embossing is when a page is pressed between two dies and heat and pressure is applied to the back of the page causing an area of the page to rise.

Blind Embossing/Debossing is when a piece is embossed/debossed but no ink is used to add color.

Blind Embossing

Debossing is the opposite of embossing. The page is pressed between two dies, but instead of pressure to the back of the page, heat and pressure is applied to the front of the page causing an area of the page to recede below the surface of the paper.

Debossing (pattern)

Debossing is not as popular as embossing, but it is commonly used to personalize leather materials. The example above is an example of blind debossing, but regular debossing is the same just with added color.

Letterpress is a technique similar to debossing, where the letters are covered in ink and are pressed into a sheet of paper causing a sort of debossed effect. When done right, letterpress work can be absolutely beautiful. You can also use a letter press without having the debossed effect, just flat text, such as how books used to be printed. I can go on forever about Letterpresses, but this is just the letterpress basics. I'll save going more in depth perhaps in a later blog post.

Letterpress

Thermography is a technique where powder, ink, and high heat are combined to create a raised effect on a page. A powdered polymer and a slow drying ink are applied to a page and the page is exposed to extremely high heat causing the powder and ink to melt. When the ink cools it hardens, thus giving the effect of thermographic printing.

Thermography

Engraving is a technique where an image is carved into a flat sheet of metal, and that sheet of metal is coated in ink and used to print. This technique, as you may know, is used to print currency (as well as many other high security paperwork), because it is nearly impossible to recreate the great level of detail.

Engraving

Foil Stamping is a technique where a metallic foil is applied to a page by means of a heated die. Foil Stamping is a little different than the other printing techniques, where you can feel the foil layer on your page, but it doesn't effect the physical dimension on that page like the other techniques. It is, however, often combined with embossing.

Foil Stamping

Die Cutting is a technique where a die is made (similar to a cookie cutter) and is used to knock out a specific shape in a print. It is kind of opposite of the printing techniques mentioned already. Instead of adding color or adding style to the page, die cutting is taking away from the page.

Die-Cuts

Coating/Varnishes are another way to add a little something to your piece. These are pretty popular when it comes to business cards. You can get anything from UV coating, to dull/aqueous, to matte or silk varnishes. Many exist to add levels of tactile quality - from extremely glosses down to flat matte. You can even to spot coating, which is a coating applied in only the places you want them.

Who would want a boring ol' business card when the finishing techniques truly are endless?

Image Sources: http://www.toxel.com/design/2010/06/30/24-creative-die-cut-business-cards/
http://www.gomediazine.com/design-articles/foil-stamping-a-finishing-favorite/
http://www.engravingmachinesite.com/2011/04/22/engraving-2/
http://www.abcoffice.com/office-equipment-news/2011/01/how-does-a-thermography-machine-work-thermographic-printing/
http://www.beastpieces.com/2009/02/capsule-letterpress-folder-invite/
http://www.offsetprintingtechnology.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/deboss2.png
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Embossing-stationery.jpg

Opacity vs Tints

I know this is probably one of those basic "well, I know that!" things, but I had to learn this one the hard way here at MMP and it is something that everyone should be sure to know... especially if you are designing for press.

I think the opacity settings threw me off originally because I started designing in Photoshop, and I had no idea where or even if the Tint setting was available. Once I moved into other design programs I took my habitual use of Opacity with me and ignored the Tint setting option all together.

The above image is an example of a press print when the opacity of a color turned down. The section on the left has the opacity turned down to 40% and the section on the right has the opacity turned down to 20%. Notice how the dots in the image get smaller and further apart as the opacity or tint  is turned down.

Opacity is the translucence of a color or layer. It can be 100% opaque meaning that it is full color and you can not see anything behind it, 99-1% opaque which makes it to where you can still see the front color as well as the color behind it, or 0% opaque meaning the color is completely translucent.

When the opacity of a color is turned down, if there is a color behind the color you are adjusting, that back color can affect the hue of your front color. In the first image above, both shapes are at 100% opacity and tint. In the second image, the blue square's opacity has been turned down to 50% making the yellow square behind it visible through the blue, as well as changing where the squares overlap to green.

Opacity in Photoshop, can be found in the Layers panel above all of the layers. If your Layers panel is not shown in your sidebar, go to 'Windows' at the top of your program window and select 'Layers' to activate it in your sidebar.

Don't get confused between the Opacity and the Fill options in this panel. There is a small but major difference between the two. Opacity takes the opacity down on EVERYTHING on that layer (including layer styles), whereas adjusting the Fill only affects the pixels in the layer but leaves the layer styles as is.

Opacity in Illustrator can be found in the Transparency panel. If your transparency panel is not active in your sidebar, simply go to 'Window' at the top of your program window and select 'Transparency', and it will appear in your sidebar.

Opacity in InDesign is in your Control Panel located at the top of your program window. If you do not see it, simply go to 'Window' and select 'Controls' to activate the control panel.

Tint is a field of color made out of dots that creates any available shade lighter than your original color. No matter how much you change the tint, the opacity of the hue never changes.

Unlike opacity, when the tint of a color is changed any color behind the color you are adjusting will not affect the front color. In the first image above, both shapes are at 100% opacity and tint. In the second image, the blue square's tint has been turned down. As you can see, unlike in the opacity example, no matter what you change the tint to you can not see the color behind it.

Tint in InDesign is in the Swatches palette on the panel on the right side of your program window. Just like finding any other available panels, go to 'Window' and select 'Swatches' to activate.

Tint in Illustrator can only work and be found if you have an item selected that is a Pantone color. If you have a Pantone selected, click on 'Colors' in your sidebar and you can change the tint.

Changing the tint is also an option in Photoshop, but only through the Duotone mode.

You might think it's strange that Illustrator only allows you to change the tint if you are using Pantones, but if you think about it it really makes more sense than trying to change the tint of a CMYK color. When you have a Pantone, if you need a lighter or darker shade you would have to search for a completely new Pantone swatch [refer back to Digital Printers vs DI Printers], thus making press jobs more complicated as well as expensive. Whereas, if you are working with CMYK all you have to do is move the color selector to a lighter or darker shade.

Knowing the difference between the two and knowing how to change them can save you from nasty color changes and printing blunders.

Great References for Printers

And people who work with Printers!

 I've stumbled across half a million of these 'Top 10 Websites for Designers' or 'Best Websites for Illustrators' and so on. I want to focus this one more around good references and foundries for Printers like us [and possibly people working with printers].

Working in a print shop we receive hundreds upon hundreds of files that have outlined text, which is no longer editable, and as much as I hate admitting this... we don't know EVERY SINGLE typeface out there. [If you know someone who does, give me their name because I want to shake their hand.] Normally this is great for printing, but when we are asked to change text that is no longer editable we set out on a mission to find the correct typeface... but it's not as easy as it sounds. There are a couple simple ways to find the name of that mysterious typeface.

www.whatthefont.com
'Whatthefont is a fast way to find a typeface. All you need is a sample of the typeface you are trying to find, and by using the different attributes of that sample it tries to give you multiple options of what it could be. The downfall, though, is it's not always accurate. It's fast!... but not always accurate. Because this website is more automated I've gotten some pretty outlandish suggestions from this site. Whatthefont might not hold every single typeface out there, but when you're in a hurry this is a good website to try out.'
www.typophile.com
'As opposed to whatthefont, this website is member run and therefore more accurate. BUT... it takes a little longer to get a response. Again, all you need is a sample of the typeface you are trying to find, submit it and the members of the website will give you suggestions. In my experience with this website, all the people on typophile are just a huge group of type gurus who love type and love talking about type and love to help each other with type. How can you go wrong? [We've used it here at the shop and we've gotten a response in 19 minutes... not too bad, huh?] If you have some extra time I definitely suggest giving typophile a try.'
www.identifont.com
'This type search is a little different than typophile and whatthefont. When the typeface you're looking for it right on the tip of you tongue or you know what it looks like but you just can't think of the name, this is a good website to use. It let you search by part of the name, by other typefaces that sort of look like it, or even by the pictures that the typeface holds (like Wing Dings).'

Along with the millions of type foundry websites, there are also a million of stock photo websites! There are, however, a few that serve a specific purpose and a few that are *cough* better than all the other ones *cough*.

www.istockphoto.com
'I've never personally been a big stockphoto person, but when the occasion calls for it this is one of my favorite stock photo sites. They have photography, illustrations, audio clips, and videos.'
www.bigstock.com
'Bigstock is another one that we use frequently here, and like istockphoto it doesn't require a subscription, you can pay as you go.'
www.gettyimages.com
'Gettyimages is another good stockphoto resource. The nifty thing about getty images is they also hold royalty-free photos [forget Google searches, getty is where it's at]. Along with the royalty-free, they also have thousands of photography, audio and video clips to choose from.'
www.shutterstock.com
'Shutterstock is another good stock photo site. They have photography, vector illustrations and web, sd, and hd videos. This is a good option if you are an avid stock photo downloader. Unlike istockphoto, which has each image at a certain price, shutterstock lets you pay a certain amount a month to download 25 images a day. In the end you could save a lot of money, if you have hundreds of images that you need to download.'
www.livesurface.com
'Livesurface is a image template library with anything from blank signs, to bottles of all kinds, to shirts, to cars, to boxes, and more. When I was putting together my portfolio for school I found this website extremely helpful, especially since I didn't have to actually go out and take the pictures myself. If you have the design just buy an image, slap the design on and you're done! [Not to mention, they also have a couple tutorials.]'
www.nasa.gov
'I'm going to throw this one in here because I think it's awesome. I've never used it, but when I get the chance I won't hesitate for a second. Nasa has all kinds of space photos available to use for the public, as long as they don't have a person's face in them (which shouldn't be TOO much of a problem since, well... they're pictures of space). We've even seen images here show up in Apple Ads!'
www.bigshotstock.com
'Unlike most of the other stock photo sites, you can find an image on this site and the transactions are between you and the photography. This site holds photos of celebrities, people in business, arts, sports, education, science, technology and more.'
www.veer.com
'Veer has tons of stock photos and illustrations as well as a lot of beautiful typefaces to buy. Like shutterstock you can get a subscription for when you anticipate high volume image downloading, or you can download them individually.'
www.youworkforthem.com
'This is personally one of my favorites when it comes to designing. Youworkforthem has photography, vector art, fonts, brushes, and videos. The only fall back is that this isn't necessarily the place you would come to for stock photos of airplanes, business peoples and cute puppy dogs. Their photos are more artistic in the aspect of perhaps using them as a texture or a background for your computer, not necessarily something you would use in a brochure for a dentist's office . However, they have a sister company where they hold all of their other stock photos that are not available on youworkforthem.'
www.nanamee.com
'The sister company of youworkforthem.com. THIS is where they hold all their stock photos. It is kind of similar to the artistic look of youworkforthem's stock photos, but there are more options. Instead of just holding abstract photos, there are vintage photos, nature, places, outdoors, photography, etc. I personally love the photos they have on here, but (again) a lot of them are not necessarily photos you would choose for dentist office collateral materials.'

But I know sometimes when I'm designing instead of having designers block, I get color block, where I can't for the life of me figure out a color scheme. There are a couple helpful sites that I fall back on when I just can't seem to make up my mind.

www.colourlovers.com
'Colourlovers is a good website to go to for a little color inspiration. You can search through different catagories of color, even go so far as to purchase shirts, personalized color swatch cards, art prints, and a Color Schemer program for you computer.'
www.kuler.adobe.com
'Kuler lets you search for color schemes by theme, most popular, highest rated, newest, what have you. I personally love kuler, not just because it's extremely useful, but countless times I have lost track of time playing with their color creator.'

Here are a couple extra ones just for the fun of it.

www.neenahpaper.com
'Neenahpaper (which is a popular paper distributor) offers different kinds of resources for designers, printers, consumers and distributor. Not only is it a good resources for... well... resources, but it also offers templates and even a glossary of terms (which is extremely helpful especially if you are working directly with a printer or designer).'
Think Ink: Color Unleashed
Think Ink is actually an app that Neenah Paper, Inc put out a couple years ago. It is similar to colourlovers and kuler where you can make different color pallets, but it also uses the scientifically validated Dewey Color System to explore the psychological meaning of hundreds of color combinations.
 www.cupcakeipsum.com
You can probably guess what this one is. It's a generator that sweetens up your Lorem Ipsum! If you ever need some place holder text, try out Cupcake Ipsum and see if anybody notices.

I know there are many useful type foundries, design inspiration sites, etc, but I wanted to focus more on types of reference/foundry sites we use here at MMP. We find each of these useful in their own personal way and hopefully you will, too.

Color Theory & Color Profiles

RGB & CMYK

This post is going to be similar to the previous post 'Pantones vs Process Colors' in the functionality of process colors (CMYK) for print. But instead of comparing Pantones and Process Colors, I'm going to get a little into color fundamentals as well as cover the different RGB & CMYK Color Profiles. You might have noticed at some point that when you print something out it looks different on paper than it does on your computer screen. This is because of the different media color profiles.

RGB (Red Green & Blue) are Additive Colors, meaning when a red light, a green light, and a blue light are added together it makes white light. This is strictly for digital (web). Kind of strange since we're used to red and blue making purple and green and red making brown, right? Well, the computer screen you are looking at right now is actually made up of tiny red, green, and blue lights. The white areas are where each of the lights are turned on, the black area is where they are turned off, and all the colors in between are the lights with varying ons, offs, and intensities. If you get out a magnifying glass or a loupe and look at your computer screen you can actually see the tiny rectangular lights.

CMYK (Cyan Magenta Yellow & Black) are Subtractive Colors, meaning when you take all the colors away you have your white paper. This is (if you recall) strictly for printing. When you add all the colors together you get black, when you take them away you get white (or the color of your paper), and all the colors in between are different combinations of CMYK. [Remember: There is no white ink. White is just the color of the paper that the image is printed on. If you are printing on ivory paper, all the white areas will appear ivory.]

The full color gamut for vision, RGB, Pantones, and CMYK.

There are a lot of different things to consider when it comes to color, because not all colors are/will be the same. All color is subjective. Our eyes technically see in RGB, and how we perceive color may be different than how your neighbor perceives color. Just like monitors: the color profile in your computer may be different than your neighbor’s, therefore the color that you see on your screen will be different than theirs. So it should be no surprise if something is a completely different shade of purple on your screen than on theirs.

An easy way to imagine how we see color is to imagine beams of light flying all around you... when the light hits an object, such as a leaf, all the colored light is soaked in but the green light bounces off, thus making the leaf appear green. Take a black car tire: the car tire soaks in all the color light and nothing bounces off, making the tire appear black. Remember, the absence of light is black (like a dark room).

We can see every visible color in the color gamut (with the exception of color blindness). The total amount of colors, i.e. all the colors possible within a given color space, is referred to as the gamut. RGB has the highest. We already know Pantone inks allow you access to colors CMYK cannot produce – as they are “outside” the CMYK gamut, whereas CMYK has the smallest gamut (the most limited range). Don’t let the RGB gamut and our visual RGB gamut confuse you: if you look at the image above, the ‘Visible Color Gamut’ is all the colors that we can see with our eyes, whereas the ‘RGB Color Gamut’ is all the colors that are visible on your computer, TV, or phone screen.

Color is also relative, especially in print. When printing on white paper, yellows will come out yellow and blues will come out blue. Whereas, if you try to print on colored paper, for example: brown paper, the color of your paper will show through your ink causing the color to change. Especially if it is a dark paper! This is a big issue with digital printers. Offset press is a little different, since the ink sits on top of the paper and is a little thicker than normal ink, the paper color can still affect the ink color, but not as much as with a digital printer.

Color is also affected by coated and uncoated papers. If you recall my example about the green light bouncing off the leaf making the leaf appear green, this is almost the same concept. Except this time, the difference between coated and uncoated paper is HOW the light bounces off. The same color can be printed on both coated and uncoated, but when the light hits the coated paper the light that bouncing off will all bounce in the same direction. Whereas the light bouncing off the uncoated paper will bounce in all different directions, giving the illusion of a different shade. But in actuality, it is the same color.

Glossy paper vs Matte paper

Because RGB is strictly for web and CMYK is strictly for print, there are a couple ways to set up your files with the correct color profiles. Otherwise, if you design in RGB and change it to CMYK, the colors will actually change from what they were originally. So to make sure that this doesn’t happen, it’s always a good idea to double check and make sure that your color profile is correct for the media you are designing for.

You might recall this if you read the ‘Image Resolution’ post, but in the New Document window it gives you the option to change your document profile. If you click the drop down you can choose to design for print, web, mobile and devices, and so on. Obviously if you select Print it will set up your profile for CMYK at 300dpi, and if you select web it will set your profile up for RGB at 72dpi. You also have the option to manually change your setting under Advanced at the bottom. The window will expand a little and it gives you the option to manually change your color mode, raster effects and preview mode.

In Photoshop’s New Document window, it is a little different. If you click on the drop down for Color Mode you can select which color mode you want to work in, and then you need to change your resolution for your image [72dpi for web and 300dpi for print]. Unlike Illustrator, though, you have to set up your color mode and resolution manually.

*Fun Fact: There are more shades of GREEN than any other color,
and YELLOW rooms actually make babies cry more than any other color.*

Digital Printers vs DI Press

Digital vs Offset

Digital Printers, much like the one you probably have at home, uses strictly CMYK as their printing colors. A lot of people who need prints quickly or have a tight budget often go with the digital printer because it is faster and cheaper than the offset press. There are a few different kinds of digital printers that use different kinds of 'inks', both of which are CMYK. The two main kinds of printers are Laser Printers and Inkjet Printers.

A 'Laser Printer' uses a toner which is in powder form. As the paper goes through the printer, the toner is attracted to a photoreceptor by a charge from a laser, and the toner is transferred onto paper. The paper is then sent through a Fuser which melts the toner and fuses it (hence the name 'Fuser') to the paper. Toner is a little different than then ink that the offset press and inkjet printers use... the toner actually sits on top of the paper, whereas the ink for the offset and inkjet are liquid so the paper soaks them in.

An example of how a digital printer works.
[Photo credit: http://superiorptg.com/process/digitalpress/]

Another type of printer is an 'Inkjet Printer', which uses liquid ink. As opposed to using charges and fusers, the inkjet sprays/drops the ink onto the paper in tiny dots, and instead of heating it the ink soaks into the paper and dries by itself.

There are a few downfalls of printing with a digital printer, though. For starters, color consistency can be a problem from job to job. Colors can stay consistent while printing a single job, but having the EXACT same color a few days later is often tricky. On large areas of flat color a digital printer can often cause banding, which is caused when rollers run over the colored area leaving a slightly visible mark all the way down the paper. Also, on large areas of flat color, the color can sometimes turn out blotchy and uneven.

Offset presses use real ink and work off plates, which are a special flexible material that has an image lasered into it. Each color has its own plate, and each of those plates are wrapped around it's own roller on the press. The area that is lasered into the plate is the only area the ink will stick to.  It can be kind of hard to imagine exactly how an offset press works unless you can see it yourself, but the easiest way to explain it is there is a roller for each color ink... that roller rolls through the ink and rolls onto the plate, which transfers the ink to a 'stamp' (blanket) which stamps it onto the paper. Much like the cogs of a watch turn and work together, the rollers in a press all turn and work together.

An example of the plate, blanket, and paper as it runs through the offset press.
[Photo credit: http://www.digitalroom.com/offset-printing.html]

The DI Printer, which means Digital Imaging, is a 4-color offset press that, if you recall from the last post (Pantones vs Process Colors), can print with CMYK as well as Pantone colors. Since the DI is usually strictly 4 colors or more, a job would need either four separate pantones or use CMYK and add an extra roller for a pantone color (if the press allows for it or has room for it).

The upsides of printing with a DI is, unlike the digital printer that uses CMYK, it has excellent color consistency, especially when using Pantone colors. This is highly beneficial for branding when specific colors are called for (like Sticky Note's yellow or even Barbie's pink). Here at MMP-MarketMailPrint, the page size limit for each of our printers is 13x19 (not counting the large format printer), but the press can handle thicker paper better than the digital printer can. For example, digital printers can often have trouble with 130# paper, whereas a press can print on 130# no problem. Also, the press produces smooth solid colors, unlike the blotchyness of a digital printer.

The downfall of a DI, or any offset press, is they can be costly and they can take a little bit longer to get a job completely done. As opposed to throwing paper into the digital printer and pressing print, ... the plates have to be made, colors mixed, press needs set up, print time, and drying time. Although, fairly large jobs can actually be quicker on the offset press than on the digital printer... it all depends on the SIZE of the job. Our DI, however, uses waterless inks which mean the drying time associated with traditional offset presses can be negated.

There are, obviously, lots of details to be considered when choosing between the DI Printer and the Digital Printer, whether it be size, color, or quantity. But if your curious about the best way to go about getting your job done, all you have to do is ask!

Pantone vs Process Colors

Much like you would use the primary colors (Red, Yellow & Blue) to make colors when you're painting a picture... process colors, or CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black), are the primary printer inks that are combined to make a majority of printable colors. These colors are the universal printer ink colors, and are used world wide on all different kinds of digital printers and 4-color presses.

When a piece is printed on a digital printer using CMYK the colors aren't physically MIXED together, they are laid on the paper in tiny dots and are visually mixed to give the illusion of different colors and shades.

In order to specify a CMYK color in any Adobe Creative Suite program, locate your Tools Bar (most likely on the left side of your screen). If you do not see it, simply go to Window and select 'Tools'.

The overlapping boxes near the bottom of the Tools Bar is your selected colors. In my example, White is my fill color and black is my outline. So if I were to draw a box, the inside of the box would be white, and the outline would be black.

 

Anywho, if you double-click one of your boxes it will bring up the Color Picker. This box lets you choose the HSB, RGB, Hexidecimal Colors (the #), (all of which are mostly used for web)and your CMYK(which is obviously for print). If you know your exact CMYK color settings you can manually type them in, or you can choose a color by moving the small round color picker and it will tell you the CMYK percentage.

Pantone is a system of colors where each color is given a designated number (PMS #). PMS (Pantone Matching System) is the world-wide standard for matching colors. Although, some colors have specific names, such as Reflex Blue or Warm Red. Most Pantone colors are not made with CMYK, but are made by mixing inks using a specific formula. Because they are not made using CMYK, Pantones are used mostly on the 1 and 2 color presses. They can be used on the 4-color if you have four Pantones that are being used, but most of the time they are on the 1 and 2-color presses.

An advantage of using pantone colors is the color is consistent on every print... whereas on a digital printer, using CMYK, colors can change slightly from printer to printer, and even from job to job. This comes in handy when a company uses a very specific color throughout it's branding, like Home Depot's Orange or Coca Cola's Red. This color can stay consistent for anything from business cards, to delivery trucks, to ad campaigns.

There are two different kinds of Pantones colors, Uncoated and Coated. Uncoated is made to print well on uncoated (or matte) paper. Whereas Coated is made to print well on a coated (or glossy) paper. You won't be able to find these colors in the Color Picker, there is a special Swatch Library just for pantones. If you click on the 'Swatches' selection (most likely on the right side of your screen), it will bring up swatches that you have loaded. I, apparently, do not have any loaded, but any color I do use later will appear in this box. If your Swatches button is not there, simply go to Window and Swatches (just like when finding your Tools bar).

When you have your Swatches box open, go to the bottom left corner and click on your Swatch Library Menu, and go down and select Color Books. This will bring up all your different Pantone libraries. Most of the time you are going to stay somewhere in the box I have showing, but if the occasion calls for it you have all these other libraries to choose from. We're going to select the Pantone Process Coated library.

This is what your library looks like. Each of these boxes are a specific color with a designated number or name. When you hover over a color the name will pop up. In this case, the pink that I'm hovering over is Pantone DS 153-1 C. The C, of course, stands for Coated... whereas if it were Uncoated it would have a U. You have thousands among thousands of colors to choose from, each one made to work best for your job specifications.

You can also search for your pantone, if you know the number. Simply click on the fly-out menu on the upper right hand corner, and select Show Find Field.

Your 'Find:' field will pop up at the top of your library, and you can search away!

Just because you've designed your job with pantones, doesn't mean you can't print in CMYK. Colors can be converted before printing, just understand that when Pantones are converted, it is the CMYK "equivalent". The whole point is Pantone allows you to access colors that CMYK cannot create, such as a super-bright neon green Pantone is likely to print a bit dull, comparatively, as a CMYK print. Now why doesn't everyone just use Pantones? It's all about time and money! It's more expensive, it takes longer to set-up and print, and requires drying time. If you're in a hurry, you should probably use the digital printer with CMYK, but if you have the time and money, by all means, ...

PRINT WITH PANTONES ON THE PRESS!

Customer Stock

Customer Stock might sound familiar if you have ever bobbed around a print shop briefly. Customer Stock is material (paper, envelopes, etc) that a customer brings in to have printed on, instead of ordering through the shop. This happens a lot when someone wants to use specialty papers, if someone has a rush order and doesn't want to wait on paper delivery, or if by some odd chance it would be cheaper to bring their own paper.

The number one important thing to consider when bringing in 'customer stock' is always bring extras. It can take anywhere from 1 sheet to 25 sheets just to set up a job... especially if it's being printed on the press. So, if someone is having 500 envelopes printed the smart thing to do would be to bring in at LEAST 525 envelopes... or 550 if they wanted to play it safe!

When paper is delivered to us, or any other print shop, the boxes that the paper come in have all the specific details we need in order to send it through the printer without jamming (size, paper weight, textures, etc). But when a customer brings in a different kind of paper, a majority of the time the package doesn't give the necessary details in order to get the prints going. We pretty much play a guessing game until we get all the right settings. If the settings are wrong, the printer will inevitably jam.

This extra paper is not only for setting up the printer... it's also used for any other special requirements that may have been requested (scoring, booklets, numbering, stapling, drill holes, etc). Depending on what specifically the job entails depends on how much extra paper will be used. For example, setting up the scorer takes more extra paper than setting up for drill holes. Or a job that requires being printed on the offset presses, is scored, and stapled will obviously use more set up paper than a job printed on a digital printer and is only cut down.

Unless you are the person printing, there's really no worry in HOW MUCH extra paper is being used, just as long as there IS extra available. It's all trial and error when setting up, so it's really hard to peg an exact number of extra sheets, that's why (like earlier) we suggest to have at least 25-50 extras.

Work-and-Turn vs Work-and-Tumble

Turn & Tumbles

This is going to be a short and sweet post about work-and-turns vs work-and-tumbles, which are a couple different printing methods when printing double sided on a press. Most of the time you wouldn't worry about whether or not your job is a turn or tumble unless you are the one printing it, but it's interesting to know, and knowing how it works could possibly save you money. When printing on a press, after one side of a piece of paper is printed on, the main difference between the two is which way the paper is turned in order to print on the back side. It all depends on the size of your artwork and how it is laid out and printed on a plate.

A work-and-tumble (or work-and-flop, or work-and-roll) is when a sheet of paper is fed through the printer, then turned over long ways (below) and fed back through the printer to print on the opposite side. On the first pass through the printer, one side of the paper is used as the gripper edge (where the printer grabs the paper to pull it through), then when turned over, the opposite side of the paper is used as the gripper edge, resulting in a slightly smaller available printing area. This method makes it a little more difficult to align the images on either side.

A work-and-tumble.

A work-and-turn (or print-and-turn) is when a sheet of paper is fed through the printer, then is turned over short ways  (below) and fed back through. This method keeps the same gripper edge, which makes it easier to align and has a slightly larger printing area than a work-and-tumble.

A work-and-turn.

Now, like I mentioned, it all depends on how the artwork is laid out to be printed. If an image, like the one below, is printed and is turned as a work-and-tumble, the image on the back would obviously be upside down.

A work-and-tumble with upside down artwork.

Whereas, if it were turned as a work-and-turn, the image on the back would be right side up.

A work-and-turn with artwork right side up

Although if the image on the sheet was rotated, then the job could be turned as a work-and-tumble.

A work-and-tumble with artwork right side up.

MIND BOGGLING!

Back to the saving you money part, which is always exciting. A trick printers have to get a cost effective job done is to do a job 2-up on a sheet (where instead of a single print, one piece is printed twice on a larger sheet of paper and cut down) and do the front and back images side by side on the front and then flip it over and print the same thing on the back. This way, instead of having to pay for a plate of the image on the front and a plate for the image on the back, both are being printed at the same time on one plate.

It can be kind of difficult to wrap your head around it without seeing a physical example or without doing it yourself (I know it took me a little bit), so get out a sheet of paper and a pencil and try it for yourself.

Image Resolution

Raster vs Vector

There are two different kinds of images: raster images and vector images. Being able to distinguish the two are very important when designing for print. Let's start by first explaining what DPI means.

DPI means Dots Per Inch; these dots are calles 'pixels'. A pixel is a tiny square with an assigned color value. Much like an object is made up of a bazillion itty bitty atoms, an image is made up of thousands of tiny dots. The more dots per ich you have, the higher resolution your image will be. Now, what exactly is a raster and a vector image?

A raster image is an image made up of thousands of pixels. These images can be scaled down, but once it is scaled up it begins to lose resolution.

A vector image is an illustration that is made up of vector data (not pixels), and can be scaled down as well as scaled up without losing any resolution. As long as the illustration is kept as its original file, it can be scaled as much as you want. But, and this is important, once it is saved as a jpg, gif, pdf (print), etc, the vector data turns into pixels and can no longer be scaled up. For example, if you were to draw something in Adobe Illustrator, you can open and close Illustrator and scale the image as many times as you wish and the resolution will never change. But once you save that image as a jpg, you can still open it in Illustrator, but you can no longer scale it up.

Here we have two images, one is a raster image and one is a vector. Neither has been scaled. Can you tell the difference?

How about if we scale them up?

The image on the left is a vector, and the image on the right is a raster. Notice how when it's scaled the pixels in the raster image get bigger, giving it a choppy 8-bit look. The vector image on the left, however, has not lost any resolution because it is still its original Illustrator file, and can be scaled however I wish to scale it.

Out of the numerous file types out there, only a few can hold vector data. Among the few vector types are AI files (Abode Illustrator native file type), EPS files (similar to AI files and can hold vector as well as raster data, but are not always reliable), and INDD files (native InDesign files).

Most of the other types of files are raster files. Among these are JPGs, GIFs, PNGs, PDFs, TIFFs, PSDs (native Adobe Photoshop files), etc. I'm sure you've heard of most, if not all, of these files. Although, I won't go into all the nitty gritty details about each one right now, but each file type is different in its own little way. Some have different resolutions, transparencies, colors, etc. It all depends on what you're saving for.

Checking your resolution is quite simple, especially if you have Adobe Photoshop handy. Open your document in Photoshop and go to 'Image' and 'Image Size', and the Image Size window will pop up. This will tell you the Pixel Dimensions, Document Size, and your Resolution.

Depending on what your image is for (web or print) you can adjust your resolution as you wish. If your document's resolution is at 72, like the image above, and you change it to 300, note that the size of the document gets smaller. This is because Photoshop squishes all the pixels together in order to give it more detail, but at the same time making the picture smaller . Keeping the physical size the same and upping your resolution to 300 is the same as scaling up in size, in that you lose resolution.

For a web image, it is suggested to have the resolution at 72. If you need to change the size of the image, you can do so under Pixel Dimensions. For a high resolution print image, it is suggested to have the resolution at 300, and to change the size, you can do so under Document size. The difference between Pixel Dimensions and Document Size, is when designing for web you don't design by inches, you design by pixels, and vice versa for print.

In order to change your resolution, open the same 'Image Size' window, and uncheck the 'Resample Image' box, which will link your resolution and your document size (so they will change fluidly), and simply type in your desired resolution size.

In Illustrator you can set up your resolution preferences when creating a new document. A majority of the time you probably won't change much in this window other than setting the size of your document and (hopefully) your bleed settings, but it does give you the option to name your document, set a number of artboards, and the spacing between artboards as well.

Illustrator actually gives a couple different areas to change your resolution preferences. Under 'New Document Profile' and under the 'Advanced' tab. In the New Document Profile drop-down, you can select what you are designing for and it will automatically set your profile for you, and under the Advanced tab you can change this profile manually. It's best to just go by the automatic 'New Document Profile' options.

InDesign, on the other hand, does not give you the option to change your resolution preferences. InDesign handles all files from other programs and any drawing done within the program is vector based. It is set to 300dpi and will not change.