Roll With It

You’re investing in this hobby, right? Printing quality pictures, buying different paper and accessories, special pens, and those little thingies that hold the pictures to the paper. The last thing you want is to ruin a picture of Great Aunt Ruth with a dull paper cutter. And, you would hate to waste a piece of that pricey acid-free paper with a mis-measured cut.

I’ve seen the cutters you can get through the scrapbooking club. They’re tiny! There are others available at hobby stores that use a little razor like blade, that dull after just one creative session. To do this right, and to save money, you need a rotary cutter.

Good rotary cutters slide effortlessly on a rail system. The blade depth is adjustable and it’s sharp enough to cut through not just paper, but newsprint, cardboard, plastic films, vellum, aluminum foil, vinyl, and whatever else your creative brain comes up with. And, you don’t just need a sharp blade, you need one that stays sharp (without costly replacements), yet safe enough to have in a house with kids. Plus, your rotary cutter needs to be big enough to hold your project, and should include measurement guides to reference.

You’re creating something to be enjoyed by generations of people in your family. Don’t waste money on something that won’t last, and may ruin parts of your project. Invest in a quality rotary cutter from Lloyds of Indiana to get the job done right every time.

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Marie Antoinette Was NOT a Fan

You don’t have to be a French Revolutionary to enjoy a good guillotine cut. The guillotine cutter has one long blade arm that is pulled down to make a cut through stacks of paper. These are great if you’re cutting stacks of newsletters, invitations, postcards, placecards, pamphlets, reply devices, or handouts. Because these use heavy-duty blades, they are also typically a heavier unit for stability. They’re often equipped with a tabletop measurement guide clearly marked, and typical cuts are outlined on the surface. One of our models will cut up to 360 sheets of 20# paper in a single stroke.

Make a Precision Slice

If you need to make a precise cut, but you’re not worried about cutting stacks of paper, then a rotary cutter is your best bet. Artists and model builders use these, as well as scrapbookers, photographers, and teachers. The rolling wheel blade is sharp, safe and glides easily over your project on a sliding rail. What you don’t want is the cheaper knock-off version of a rotary cutter. These use a razor-like blade that dulls quickly and works poorly on anything but standard stock paper. Forget cutting photos, artist quality paper, or cardstock.

Most rotary cutter models come with a measurement guide on the surface and the side, plus an adjustable depth guide to help you align your project with precision. You’ll set the transparent clamping bar to hold your trimming material in place and allow you to monitor the trimming process. Then, twin sliding poles will guide your blade with comfort and accuracy. It’s pretty quick and always precise.

Check out Lloyd’s selection of paper cutters and see which one is for you.

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There are some new printing technologies that can make you stand out from the crowd. Here are a few we can recommend:

1. Variable Data Direct Mail Postcards

Only a few restaurants take advantage of direct mail, so the ones that do stand out from the crowd. Purchase a “radius mailing list” of all residential addresses within 3 miles of your restaurant. Or if you’re attracting a lunch crowd, get the list of business addresses within the same radius. You can get more specific, and identify households with children, or with single people, people who make a certain income, etc. Then, create specific offers to the different types of households. The variable data technology will let you print each offer for each type of household: the homes with children get the “free children’s meals on Tuesday” offer, and the businesses get the “free soft drinks for parties of 4 or more” offer. Thanks to variable data printing, these can even happen on the same run, which cuts down on your printing time.

2. UV Coated Business Cards

UV coated business cards are all the rage among entrepreneurs and small business owners. The cards are ultra-glossy, thicker, and the colors pop. They’re not expensive, they only seem like it. Use these cards for special “manager-only offers. Hand them out to friends and regulars, and invite people to share them. Give them to event planners and business owners who need a place for their corporate lunches, meetings, and special events. The printing process is done by a machine right after the cards have been printed. This way, everything happens at once, which makes the process easier.

3. Frequently Update Menus

Some restaurants have had the same menu for years, and others update their menus every day. What do you do if you only change your menu every season, or even every month? You could go to a special menu printing company, or you could go to their supplier and work with someone who can get you a better price. Just create your menu, or work with a graphic designer, update it as needed, and send the print file off to your trusted printer. They’ll print the pages, and cut them to size for you. And with today’s digital printing technology — the same kind we used for the direct mail postcards — you can update your menus as often as you’d like for a reasonable price.

4. UV Coated Menus

I really like the menus that are UV coated, rather than laminated or stuck in the menu pockets. They’re thinner, less bulky, and just seem more simple, attractive, and elegant. And believe it or not, they’re not that expensive. The same technology that’s used for the UV coated cards is used for these UV coated menus. It just happens during the printing process, so it doesn’t cost a lot or add a delay in production time. So they stand up to spills, don’t get easily bent or dog-eared, and can last a good long time.

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Most designers usually only make this mistake once, and then the lesson is remembered forever. But it can still be an expensive mistake to make, if you don’t have someone who catches it before the job prints, or if you have to do an expensive reprint.

Before you start, be sure you use the proper margin settings. When you setting up a new document in your page layout program, be sure you select the option that lets you set inside and outside margins, not left and right margins. You use left and right margins if you’re printing one-sided sheets, like a typical report. You should be able to select double-sided as a layout option, which should then activate the Inside/Outisde layout option.

Here are a few important points to keep in mind, based on the different bindery options.

• Saddle stitch: This is the typical staple-in-the-center bindery method. While you don’t lose a lot of interior space, you will lose a little on the outside. That’s because when you stack several folded sheets together, you start to get a fanning effect, where the innermost pages stick out beyond the front cover. When this happens, the pages have to be face cut, and you can lose as much as .25 inches off the outside margin. Talk to your printer and see what they recommend.
• Perfect Binding: Your typical book binding. Most book publishers want a 1.5″ margin for an inside margin. Take a look at a book, and see how much you’re able to see on the pages in the middle. As you get further into the book, the pages are harder to open, which means you need some extra white space. Some trade paperbacks, like the Dummies series
• Comb, Coil, Spiral, and Wire binding: These books are made to lay flat, unlike perfect bound books. It’s like laying two stacks of paper side by side, with about a .25 inch gap between them. Because of this, graphics should not cross pages. That is, don’t create a two-page photo spread, especially if you’re going for something really fancy and high class. You can do it with saddle stitching, especially if you can land it on the center page of the book, but it just doesn’t look good with these spreads. The margin for these books should run around 1.5″, but can go up to a 2″ inside margin. Talk to your printer to find out what he or she recommends.

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• How to Create a Magalog

Higher Reader Retention Rate

Because a magalog’s content tends to be more editorial and therefore engaging, readers are more likely to hang on to it the way they would hang on to a magazine. You get a catalog in the mail, you might flip through it and then recycle it, right? But, you get a magazine in the mail that’s stuffed with informative articles and captivating content and you’re more inclined to keep it longer or even share it with others.

The more informative or useful the content, the more likely the reader will keep the magalog.

More Sales Opportunities

Because a magalog has more copy, there are more opportunities to creatively push and sell your products. That doesn’t mean every inch of text has to be dripping with advertising, just that you have more options for pushing your product than a tiny 3×2″ copy square next to its picture.

In other words, you can weave product mentions into your editorial content, highlight products in accompanying photos or discuss multiple products in one piece.

For example, I just picked up a point-of-sale magalog from a local winery. Sure, there’s an order form in the back and a listing of their products, but it’s so much more than a catalog. It’s full of articles about wine, meal pairings and even recipes and each of those content pieces is, in turn, stuffed with product mentions.

Quality Construction

Typically, catalogs are stapled together. It’s fast and it’s cheap. With a magalog, part of the appeal is in the design and the construction. That means using a bindery and high-quality binding equipment. For thicker magalogs, you could use glue or Unibind systems. Meanwhile, more compact magalogs can be bound using binding equipment like the Akiles DuoMac or with the fine finish of coil that the CoilMac provides.

Fewer Items, More Highlights

Magalogs tend to focus on in-depth copy and really delving into a product or topic. On the other hand, catalogs are exactly that – catalogs, compilations of records. They’re lists of your products with just the basics and could really be reduced down to little more than a table.

By focusing on fewer products in a magalog, you can highlight more selling points and really push sales on those key items.

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This is also the time that many businesses start looking for new ways to promote their brands to potential customers. But with the economy tightening, many companies are looking for ways to cut back on their trade show expenses. Here are three ways you can save money on printing costs and improve your effectiveness before your next trade show.

• Print shorter runs of sales brochures: Most people will print 10,000 copies of a brochure, because their per piece cost will drop dramatically. The problem is if you only give away 1,000 pieces per year, you’ll have that sales literature for 10 loooong years.

  And since your products and brands will certainly change in that 10 years, you don’t want to be stuck with 9,000 pieces of out-of-date sales brochures — all that money you saved just got wasted the second anything changes on that brochure. Instead print just what you’ll need for a year. The per piece price will be more in the short run, but you won’t waste the brochures or money in the long run.

• Try variable data sales literature: Admittedly, the per piece price will be a lot more than even the regular brochures. However, their effectiveness is a lot higher than the standard generic brochures. Pick your top 10, 20, or even 50 best potential or existing customers and design a brochure just for them. Highlight their problems, their pains, and show how your product or service will help them. Make the brochure speak specifically to them, and it will serve as a great sales tool that will continue to work long after the show is over. This will be much more effective than handing your potential customer a brochure and hoping he or she will read it among all the other stacks of brochures they’re carrying around that day.
• Use variable data business cards: We’re starting to see a lot more of this here. With our Legend 72HUV wide format printer, customers are creating business cards with variable data, like putting special messages to clients, special offers and promotions related to a particular trade show, or even using different phone numbers to track calls.

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1. Choose virgin “green” or “sustainable” paper

By stocking sustainable or green paper, you can offer more choices to your customers that are both environmentally friendly and humane. The Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) and the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) are two different bodies that both audit and certify forest managers and loggers in terms of their environmental sustainability as well as cultural and local responsibility.

2. Try recycled paper

Another green printing option is recycled paper stock. You can start at 10% recycled content and work your way up to 100% recycled (meaning the paper is made from 100% post-consumer materials). The recycled content of a stock can affect its finish and its gloss, however many designers have not only worked around this, they’ve made the “character” of 100% recycled paper part of the design itself.

3. Organic and non-toxic ink choices

Instead of depending on traditional, petroleum-based inks, opt for ink choices that are biodegradable and non-toxic. Not only are these inks better for the Earth, they’re better for your health.

4. Think about the long-term uses of that catalog

To make your catalogs as green as possible, try to make them as evergreen as possible, meaning they’ll be applicable and up-to-date for as long as possible. Also, encourage readers to recycle by including a “Recycle Me” logo on the back.

And remember, “green printing” goes beyond stocking sustainable paper or printing catalogs with corn ink. You have to make a commitment to also change your own internal policies. Are you recycling at your shop? How are you disposing of potentially toxic waste? Are you minimizing your waste? And what are you doing to buy locally?

How are you making your shop greener and what sort of green printing products are you offering your catalog customers? I’d love to hear from you in the comments section.

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