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: FAQs
Are you prepared for business blogging?
Good afternoon inkheads! I’m sure you’re stoked on the long holiday weekend ahead. While you’re relaxing with friends and family, I ask you to spend at least a little bit of your downtime thinking about your business blog. Why would I want you to think about work on July the 4th? Simple—because I believe that […]
Get Your Proof On: Free Prepress Proofs for Your Projects
Today is your lucky day inkheads. We know that as much as you dig print design and typography, the actual process of putting your artwork on paper can be quite painful. Maybe you’re fresh out of art school, and your courses didn’t cover technical printing knowledge. Perhaps you’re a veteran rushing to meet a deadline, […]
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 […]
Embossed Business Cards Are Awesome
Hello inkheads! The other day I noticed an irresistible business card sitting on our manager’s desk (his name is Alex, btw). I picked it up and carefully felt the surface to see if I’d be able to identify the printed effect. Is this card embossed? I asked. Yeah, he replied. Oh well, I thought, must […]
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 […]
Lead in with Juicy Headlines
Due to the overwhelmingly positive feedback on our blogging tips for commercial printers post, I decided to extend this topic into an article series. Most of the responses I got came from folks in the printing industry who are pretty green when it comes to copywriting and content marketing in general. I applaud those of […]
Creative Plastic Business Card Design Ideas
We’ve noticed an increased interest in our plastic business card printing service so far in 2014. I already discussed several technical questions about our frosted plastic cards in this FAQ. Today I want to showcase the creative side of this product. The projects below come from our real clients, and we’re proud to be able […]
The Commercial Printer’s Guide to Hashtags
All right printers, it’s time to get serious about hashtags for your social media marketing. Anybody who follows me on my personal account knows that I basically live on Twitter. Between my job here at PrintFirm and my extracurricular activities, I’m rarely offline. I’ve noticed an increase in print related activity lately, and I’m stoked […]
Can I Make Bookmarks in Adobe Photoshop?
I noticed this question in our search query data, so I thought it would be a good idea to answer it here on our blog. Custom bookmarks make great Christmas gifts for kids, teachers, writers, readers, and they’re also excellent promotional items for marketing your business. We printed bookmarks for our friends at the PrintMediaCentr […]