Archive for Print Design Archives -

Valentine’s Day is coming up, and pretty soon we’ll be exchanging candies and printed Valentine’s Day cards with friends and significant others.

The holidays are upon us, and so are holiday print projects! Whether you’re designing your corporate greeting cards or personal postcards, a festive font helps convey the mood of the season.

First impressions are important. When you go on a job interview or that all-important first date, you don’t just wear the first outfit you pull out of your drawer. You put your best foot forward and choose your outfit with care. A great outfit helps you leave a great first impression. It communicates something about you before you even start to speak. When you really think about it, isn’t an envelope your direct mail piece’s first impression? A lot of effort was put into creating that beautiful invitation or mailer. Why wouldn’t you want to send it out in an envelope that says, “I am carrying something awesome inside – you definitely want to open me!” Fortunately, there endless ways to elevate your envelopes. Here are five of our favorite tricks for making them stand out. 1. Eye-Catching Colors A bright envelope is exciting and attention-getting! There are so many […]

A solid publication starts with great content that engages the mind. Then you need beautiful images. Whether they are photographs or illustrations, they should support your content and inspire the reader. Typography and layout design are important, too. Your layout serves as a “tour guide”, leading your reader through the content. A good layout makes a book a pleasure to read and adds value to the content. These design elements are vital to the success of your finished piece. But this is a print publication, and the design work isn’t done once your design file has been set up. You still have some important decisions ahead of you, and they all fall into the hands of — you guessed it — your printer! Making the right choices at the printer can take your design from great to WOW! To make your publication as impressive and reader-friendly as possible, we’ve created […]

Whether you’re getting married, planning a sweet sixteen, or hosting a corporate gala, your invitation suite is important. This is your invitees first interaction with your event. Your invites aren’t just providing written information – the design of this piece communicates so much more. A strong invitation suite carries the event’s theme. It gives the recipient a taste of what is to come, and it can generate excitement and anticipation. So don’t let your design fall flat! Here are some tips for creating beautiful invitations – no matter what the occasion! Important note: Our talented designer Jaime Zucker created this set to show you what’s possible, but this event is not real! Don’t be offended that you weren’t invited. 1. Choosing Your Stock With invitations, one of the best ways to utilize this additional impact is to select a great stock for your project. For this project, we selected a […]

We’ve been printing a lot of beautiful invitations, and this design is one of our favorites!

Designing an invitation suite for a wedding, birthday party, corporate gala, or another special event? Typography and fonts will play a key role in your design!

Hosting a company gala, a fundraiser, or attending a trade show in the near future? Have you decided kind of signage you’ll be using? The best event signage is portable and lightweight (no need to make setup more work than it already is!) and bonus points if it can be reused for your next event (you’ll save money and you’ll feel good about the trees you saved). There are some standard signs that you’ll find are commonplace at events — vinyl banners, pop-up banner stands, and posters. But a clever and unusual sign can be a great way to build brand memory and make your event unforgettable. Below, you’ll find four unique signage types that we recommend trying out for your next event. Cutouts You can have a life-size cutout, or you could go with a Polaroid or Instagram frame that guests can hold up in the photo. Why They’re […]

Getting ready to send your files off to the printer? Setting up your print files properly can seem overwhelming, which it why we’ve rounded up all our prepress articles and shared them in a format that makes it easy for you to navigate them. The checklist below will carry you through each aspect of preparing your files and provides a link to the tutorial that corresponds with that topic. Don’t forget to swing by our Resource Library for a FREE printable version of this checklist to keep at your desk! IMAGES Prepress 101: How to Prepare Images for Print – 300 DPI/PPI resolution – Convert images to CMYK – Images are large enough to avoid pixilation – Vector files are best for logos, icons, and graphics – Images/graphics packaged with file or embedded FONTS – Proofread your work! – Package fonts with the file OR convert text to outlines – […]

Trade shows are a great way to network and gain exposure for your company. The design of your signage plays a key role in attracting people to your booth and building brand recognition for the future. Here are five tips for designing effective trade show signage: 1. Make sure your displays match your corporate stationery, website, and marketing collateral. Trade shows are an opportunity to gain brand recognition on the show floor. Be sure that the colors and design are consistent with your branding. Switching to a different design or colors for your booth is not going to build this recognition. Don’t waste any opportunity to get people familiar with your brand! 2. Less is more! Your banners should be clearly visible from a distance, so a clean design is usually your best bet. Keep in mind that you can reuse this signage in the future if you design it […]

We’ve all experienced it – you (or your designer) spent time creating a beautiful print project. But when you get the proof back from the printer, you realize that your images don’t look so good. What seemed clear on the computer is pixelated on the paper. Or maybe the colors just aren’t quite as vibrant as they were on the screen. Luckily, these issues are easily avoidable. It all comes down to knowing how to prepare quality images for print. Here are three simple things to check when selecting and prepping images for your print projects: 1. Convert images to CMYK You’ll need to make sure that all images that you plan to use in your project are set to CMYK color mode. RGB color mode is typically the default, but this is best for photos that will be used on the internet. To optimize the colors in your print […]

At Conlin’s we offer over eight types of binding to finish your printed projects. Each type of binding has it’s own unique features, and choosing the best one for you depends largely on the project. There are several important factors to consider when selecting binding for your booklets, including: – What is the purpose of the project? – Does it need a professional finish, or it is going to be used internally? – How long will the piece be used for? Does it need a durable binding? Read on for info on each binding type, plus tips for making the final decision: Coil Binding A plastic coil holds together the pages of your coil-bound book. One of the major benefits of coil binding is that the finished product will lay flat on any page. You can also use tabs to further organize your book. This binding type is a common […]

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