Welcome back inkheads—hope you enjoyed the loooong weekend over the 4th of July holiday! A week ago today, yours truly participated in a Social Media Day 2014 Facebook Q & A on the Social Solutions Collective page. We didn’t have a huge turnout. Nevertheless, one small biz owner posed a question that always seems to […]
Category Archives: Catalog Printing and Design
Prepress 101: From Fonts to Bleed
Guest post by Christine Alexander You’ve been slaving for hours to get that project design completed, and you’re just about ready to send it off to your printer. Just what is it that your print provider is looking for when they open up your files and prepare them for proofing and press? Sizing First and […]
Print Media You See Every Day
Image source: http://skurktur.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/CMYK-51.jpg Fellow inkheads, I’ve noticed that the general public, especially folks who work in online marketing, cast a very narrow view of print. They seem to view our dynamic industry through biased blinders that cause them to reach false conclusions about print’s future. Surely some of these folks deliberately downplay print’s value, yet I […]
What does print ready artwork mean?
Hello inkheads! Let me start off by wishing you a very happy June! Summer is my favorite time of year and luckily, PrintFirm’s celebrating the season with lots of exciting sales and promotions. I’m also planning a few more of those free print product giveaways you guys like so much. I don’t want to spoil […]
When to Use Plain vs Rich Black
Hello inkheads! We all know print design projects have several pain points, especially when it comes to color matching. For instance, have you ever held your freshly printed piece in your hands and wondered, “Why the heck does the black stuff look grey???” After the initial shock dissipated, you probably questioned what the press operator […]
New Print Isn’t Dead Magazine Contest!
Happy Monday, inkheads! Today I’ve got a fun update to share via the Twitterverse. The fine folks at the People of Print are running an awesome contest perfect for the CMYK crowd. They’re giving away a copy of the brand new Print Isn’t Dead Magazine as well as stickers designed by famed illustrator Kyle Platts […]
Brochure Typography: Serifs vs Sans
I’m always amazed at the lack of good resources for print design. While a handful of popular print products get a lot of tutorial and template love (business cards come to mind), other important items are ignored by most of the designer sites. Judging by the amount of people searching for brochure layout and typography […]
Count Pages Properly For Your Print Marketing Projects
Hello and welcome to the 5th article in our series 7 things NOT to say to your printer. Today’s printucational article will be a little different than the previous posts because the topic comes directly from our CEO, Nick Artounian. Nick asked me to write about one his personal pet peeves—multi-page documents. Nick’s got nothing […]
7 Things Not to Say to Your Printer Part 3: I Don’t Need a Graphic Designer
Hello and welcome to the 3rd installment of our educational series on commercial printing! If you have questions about image resolution or colors, you might want to backtrack and read the prior posts first. Today’s post will be a bit different because we’re going to discuss an important business investment you may be neglecting—professional graphic […]
7 Things Not to Say to Your Printer: Part 2 | PrintFirm.com
Welcome back to our educational series on commercial printing! Last month, we introduced this article collection with an informative post on image resolution. If you’ve ever wondered why a photo came out blurry in print, you’ll probably find your answer there. Today we’re going to cover another common round of associated questions we get from […]