CALENDARS TO SUIT YOUR BUDGET

It is the Calendar season now...most of the companies from small enterprise to a big corporate office, retail outlets to big departmental stores and small scale industry to a big factory all will be on the lookout  for best calendars (wall/desk top) to suit their budget.

At the outset, I would like to advise the buyers to look for the calendars of their choice within their budget. If you have a small quantity as your requirement, that is up to 200-300 nos., you can go for digitally printed copies of desk calendars in A5 / A4 or 7" (h) x 9" (w) size preferably with wire-O binding mounted to a hard-case stand. Hard-case stands usually are slightly expensive but are worth the money spent on it, as the calendar will stand on the desk/table in a upright position without warping due to weather conditions. For wall calendars of up to A3 size, you may opt for digital printing as it is easy to customise it when printed this way.

If your requirements cross 300, then it is advisable to go for offset printed calendars as you can also go for a bigger size like 19" (h) x 14" (w) or 22" (h) x 17" (w) or even bigger ones - you can always choose. If you need the calendars to also work like a planner, that is, the end user intending to write on the calendar, then you can go for matte paper/card as it is easier to write on them. Your themes can vary from a religious one to so many other themes of your choice. A print-design studio will be the ideal place to discuss your requirements with as they understand your brief better and will come back with good options for you to choose from. Remember, a calendar is Not a sales tool but it is only a give away with your company's identity. Most of the buyers think they invested on a calendar and they hardly got any returns. But the calendar can always give a recall value of your brand as it keeps reminding the user about the company that gave it to him. This is the reason you need to choose a very good theme for your  calendar as an attractive looking calendar always occupies a prominent position in a end user's place. For any assistance or guidance you may always contact us from the details available  at www.kiranprintproduction.com.

COLLATERALS FOR FESTIVE SEASON for Print Buyers

As we are deeper into the festive season, there are any number of marketing collaterals that need to be printed for products ranging from house hold, consumer durable, electronic, mobile phones, white goods, textile, ready-to-wear fashion apparels, fashion footwear, sweets n savories etc. With the busy season in mind, the spender needs to know how to get value for money spent on collaterals.

First of all, one needs to be calculative to the extent as to where he is going to utilise the end product. On finalising the end use, the buyer can freeze on the quantity as most of the times we come across the leaflets, pamphlets that are thrown/littered on the streets. There are a couple of alternatives like a brief product note as a newspaper insert/flyer in a mini version in A5 size and a detailed version that may be kept in-shop for consumers to pick up when he visits to know more about the product specification. This way paper is also not wasted and the overall wastage will also be minimised.

It is best to continue the theme that is running on the electronic/digital/television media to get the continuity and brand recall. This way, the print buyer stands benefited for the brand recall by the customer. While selecting the paper to print, chose a thinner glossy art paper like 90 gsm art paper for the newspaper inserts and a slightly thicker version like 135 gsm art paper for the product literature to make an impact and save on print production costs as well. For the POS items like Danglers, you may choose  300 gsm art card as it stands out without curving in the room temperature, but make sure to either have no lamination or have lamination on both sides to prevent it from curving. Alternately you may contact or get in touch with kiranprint for bulk and economical printing solutions.

STANDARD SIZES FOR PRINTED PRODUCTS - Guide to Designers

While we have discussed the importance and criteria for selection of Printers/Print professionals in our previous Posts, lets us find out standard sizes for printed products like Flyers, Leaflets, Newspaper inserts, a single fold Catalogue or multiple page Booklets.

Sizes chosen must be economical in the first place as this will lead to cost control while printing the same. Most popular sizes for Flyers/Leaflets are: A5 (210 mm x 148.5 mm) and increases to A4 (297 mm x 210 mm). 

The other standard sizes like 280 mm x 210 mm, 228 mm x 177 mm and so on. Generally the sizes chosen are the sub-division of standard paper sizes and most popular among the available sizes are: 584 mm x 914 mm, 762 mm x 1016 and 635 mm x 914 mm.

The sizes should not be too big for a standard catalogue, flyer, leaflet or booklet as the receiver should find it convenient to hold and go through it comfortably. If the sizes are ab-normal or unusual, deviating from the regular sizes, it leads to cost escalation for the Client. Even if a designer wants to go for a size that is not a usual one, to be different from the run of the mill look, he/she can still go for a size which could be a 1/6th or 1/3rd of the full sheet size of the paper. Choosing such a size gives him an edge over the regular size/look and still will be economical for the Client when it comes to printing the same. The booklets referred to here, are with an assumption of around 48-52 pages totally. If the content is more and runs into more pages, then the finish of the booklet will have to be a section sewn one. The sections of 8/12/16 pages are put together and held together at the back and bound with the hard case cover that will enable the text pages to open flat. On the other hand, up to 48/52 text pages are usually centre pinned and the pages towards the centre will have less margin on the cutting side (left & right).

Similarly sizes for Posters of consumer durable products are from A3 (420 mm x 297 mm), 482 mm x 355 mm, 558 mm x 431 mm, 736 mm x 482 mm, 889 mm x 558 mm and 990 mm x 736 mm. These are some of the usual sizes of Posters for printing by offset process. Point of sale Danglers are varied in nature in their designs as they may be of single or two-piece or even 3-piece, held together by a string. But still the pieces of the danglers could be suitable sub-divisions of the open sheet size.

 Hope the details shared above gives a fair idea to some of the designers who are not well versed with standard sizes of papers and printing processes. Please feel free to share your comments/thoughts in this post in the comments area below. For our services in the industry, please login to http://www.kiranprintproduction.com/

PRINT BUYING IS A SCIENCE AND AN ART

As the monsoon sets in, most companies/ industries have their hands full as they sit down to plan for the year ahead. It could be planning ahead for launches, re-launches or taking part in major fairs/exhibitions around the key city centres.

In addition to the regular media stuff like press ads, social media, Radio, Film & TV, last but not the least Printed collaterals are also planned for rolling out. Printed collaterals play a vital role in educating the customers/consumers through the information shared, as a lot of eyeballs run through the literature meticulously.

The printed collaterals have to be absolutely eye catching - could be right from its size, shape, look, colour, feel and the way it is finished. All these factors play a major role in the hands of people receiving the collateral - they could either go through it from start to finish or may lose interest and discard it aside. Production of these literature should be initiated with a scientific approach: choosing the right size that does not have wastage, a size that is well received by the end user, a size that is easily noticed by the audience are important points.  The finalised size should be shared with the creative/design agency to ensure the artworks are done as per this size.

The marketing/sourcing/purchase departments can go ahead and look for a printer/print services provider to give the best price - best price is always debatable as each printer will quote for a different  quality of paper despite mentioning the specified category of paper. Hence, always work with a limited set of quality service providers who have an excellent past record as far as print deliverables are concerned. Working with knowledgeable service providers improves the quality of the output you get and also educates you with a lot of information which you were not aware of earlier. Working with a limited set of quality service providers will also create healthy competition among those vendors and eliminate unwanted quality issues. It will be a win-win situation for both the buyer and the service provider.

Having finalised the service provider/printer, get them to have a look at the jpegs/PDFs before initiating the work as they might have valuable inputs to make, to prevent post production issues as creative agencies/studios sometimes tend to make errors in the artwork die-keys, colour schemes with reference to typography etc which can be prevented at the artwork stage itself.

These inputs above give you an indication of the methodical approach to print buying which is scientific and working with the professional service providers involving them in the process at the right time for their inputs which is an art. Your comments and queries can be put in the comments below. For our services, please visit us at www.kiranprintproduction.com

WHY TO USE PRINT PRODUCTION SPECIALISTS for printing marketing collaterals

Another financial year is just born and new budgets for the marketing activities have been allocated. Now most of the marketing and Sales teams will start allocating money for various activities that are planned for the next year. Schools and Colleges will reopen in end May and June and that is when sales promotion and marketing activities begin to happen. It will begin with school children’s uniforms, shoes, school bags-regular and water proofed ones. Textile companies regionally start promoting their products for school uniform clothing and Shoe companies, particularly national brands will start with their ad campaigns targeting school kids’ parents. Similarly Biscuit companies will start their activities promoting their brands with various offers targeting the same set of audience.

Once the strategies are in place, advertising agencies will be called to chalk out the plan of action for different Medias like Print, Television, Digital (Internet) and printing of POS materials…Posters, Banners etc. Once the agencies consume the maximum time to produce the creatives and very little time will be left to produce the collaterals. Clients then start enquiring for costs for execution of these printed collaterals and finalise the Vendors/Printers. As the season begins for the commercial print houses, they are in a hurry to complete as many jobs as possible before moving to the festival season rush.

This urgency usually ends up with Clients spending money on the mediocre quality of printed collaterals as there is hardly any time for the quality checking on the supplied materials by the printer. The lighter or darker looking Posters, Foam banners will be noticed by the Sales teams on market rounds and start complaining. This is where a Print Production Specialist makes all the difference with his experience and expertise. By nature Print production specialists have imbibed certain quality culture through their formative years in advertising agencies. Hiring their services for a marginally higher amount than the printer is worth its value as print production specialists take charge right from the time the artworks are handed over to them along with an Order to print. They understand the end result required and start working backwards to coordinate with agency’s art directors to get the right size to eliminate wastage which results in cost benefits, the right colour balance in the originals of the artwork to avoid ink gains (dot gains) in the final printing to ensure clarity of the visuals as per the shoot/originals. Once the printing is completed, the Print production specialist team starts coordinating with the finishing departments in the printing presses to start sorting of printed quantity to eliminate inconsistent copies and ensure only the consistently good looking copies are packed and delivered. Kiran print production services is one such company that could make a difference (visit: http://www.kiranprintproduction.com/about.html) and take care of a lot of your print sourcing head aches. 

If you have any questions, you may raise it in the comment section and I will be glad to answer those.

Rosenrot Online

Rosenrot Online

Importance of Printed Products

While I had stressed on the role of Print and role of Printing in my earlier blogs, let me go a step further and write about printed products. Some of the printed products include Dictionary, Dailies (Newspapers), journals, text books and atlases which provide us with knowledge and information.

Despite a level of education, it is extremely difficult to be aware of the meaning of so many words that are printed in the text books, journals etc and hence we refer dictionaries to understand the meaning of certain words which are not in our frequent use. This is where a Dictionary is handy and a must in every house, office or an institution. There is no doubt we can refer to it online but the convenience of a dictionary next to our reading material is totally different as you would agree. Once you search for the meaning of a word, you don’t end it there, but get curious as your eyes run over a couple of pages more just to know something else. That is the power and convenience of a printed product.

Dailies or Newspapers bring us the latest news everyday (of course it is a day old compared to TV News/Internet News) in detail and this is the reason we all wait eagerly every morning for the newspaper boy. Newspapers document the news in detail for us to read it at our convenience during the day. This is where advertisers take advantage to display a launch ad or a seasonal discount or announce an upcoming event as people generally run their eyes over headlines first before reading through the news of their interest. If the layout/colour scheme and position of the ad is good, it is difficult to miss it. Journals and Text books impart huge amount of knowledge that will be stored in our memories as we pursue a particular subject. 

We keep referring it frequently till at least we have gained 50-60% of what is there in the journal/text book. In fact, these will remain bibles for us for quite some time until we move to the next level. Atlases have been helpful to us right from our school days as we learnt about countries, states and districts. The basics of geographies were told to us through these and you can find a latest & detailed Atlas in most of the Institutions/Offices. You see the maps and atlases on Google for finding locations and have gone one step further in GPRS and help us reach an unknown/new destination without much difficulty.

Hope the above information was useful, let me come back later with little more.

ROLE of Printing

Hi guys, continuing from my previous blog/post on Role of Print, I would like to emphasize the importance of printing and printed products. When you need to spread the knowledge far and wide, printed literature are the only way considering the connectivity issues. The printed literature can easily be distributed among the masses to ensure the message is conveyed across

When you need to make an announcement regarding launch of a consumer product, print media does the job quickly – it could either be through an ad in the print media or through slipping inserts in newspapers. The benefits are well understood by most of the popular consumer product manufacturers and advertising agencies who undertake such activities. This also happens to be one of the most tried and tested modes of launch activity which is well supported by outdoor media like hoardings, electronic media and internet (digital) media. Product literature, fliers, price lists are some of the most sought after printed products commercially as they give the details the consumers are looking for. When there is a festival season approaching, the retailers boost their sales activities using printed Point of Sale materials (POSM) to attract consumers’ attention in the retail outlets. You may have noticed plenty of Danglers, Streamers and buntings used in the showrooms that decorate the whole area giving a festive and colourful look.

When most of us started our schooling in our childhood, we were introduced to slates where we scribbled the alphabets and numbers to learn our basics in literature. when we progressed gradually to write alphabets and numbers fluently, we started to learn words, sentences, paragraphs and similarly ones, tens, hundreds and thousands in counts.

In the next stage, we were more fluent in reading and writing as our teachers started to teach us showing illustrative books to explain meanings pictorially. Over a period of time we started reading and understanding by ourselves all the stories and narrations in the books and similarly the basic maths were also understood. In the next phase, our mind became independent to choose what we wanted to read or practice with the use of printed books.

Today most of us are professionals in different fields and who can forget books? There are hardly any…as everyone would have used printed books and even continue to use them. Reading always gives a lot of thrill just like listening to stories as the joy and excitement of imagination knows no bounds. I am sure you would rather listen to a popular song and visualise the song in your mind than watch it on TV. Similarly when you read a novel/story, the thrill of imagination is totally different. But to read, you still need books and that needs the support of printing. Despite the advent of Digital era, printing will survive as you still look forward impatiently to your newspaper boy in the morning knowing fully well you can surf the net for the news. One cannot be on the system/net all the time as you will be disconnected from physical human contact.

Friends, don’t give up reading habits and encourage others to read by sharing the thrill of reading with your friends, next generation, kit and kin.