Printing Paper - Weight & Thickness Conversions Guide

The appearance of printing projects depends on the right combination of varied printing paper and customization options. However, knowing and choosing the best options may be challenging because there are so many options to choose from. Most buyers make mistakes because of the confusing multitude of paper types. Here, we will explain the available paper weight choices and how to tell the difference between each of them.

Choosing Your Printing Paper

To most consumers, paper is either flimsy or firm. Although, there are numbers and metrics used to signify the thickness and sturdiness of paper.

A good rule of thumb is: the greater the weight or point, the more sturdy and durable your material will be. Below are various paper weight units of measurement and their definition.

Paper Weight and Measurement Definitions

Since all manufacturers don’t use the same metric, our team at Clash created a quick reference for the most commonly used paper types, weights and measures.

Learn this basic unit of paper weight measurement.

Pound – Distinguishes how many pounds 500 sheets of a specific paper grade weighs. Each respective paper grade has an industry standard size.

Point – Refers to the thickness of an individual sheet when measured with a device that measures micrometers, or thousands of an inch.

Below are the more popular paper weights.

Text – This paper can be referred to as “offset”, and has a wide range of uses.

Bond – Uncoated bond stock, often called “writing” paper, is most often used in office printer and copy machines.

Cover – These stocks are mostly rigid and not easily folded. Cover stock paper is frequently used on publication covers, business cards, folders and postcards

Paper Coating

Paper coating adds a tactile and visual appeal to printed materials. These coatings are flexible in their application. They can be used on the entire surface, or a certain part of the paper to highlight your logo or company mark for example.

UV Coating: (Ultra Violet): The solvent-free UV coating is a lustrous, glossy, very protective coating that provides a chemical and abrasive resistant hard finish. It may be used strategically to make a logo or picture stand out or used on an entire surface.

Aqueous: This water-based coating is thinner than UV coating. It protects surfaces from dirt, fingerprints, and scratches with its medium glossy finish. It is mostly used on brochures and postcards as well as business cards, protecting them through their journey in mails and deep pockets.

Paper Types

The right paper type can make your printing project really stand out. With choices ranging from gloss to dull, satin and matte, you can greatly improve the look of your project by simply selecting the right type. Get familiar which each type below:

Gloss – Just like a photograph, this appears as a glossy surface.

Satin – Coming halfway between gloss and matte, it enhances full-colour graphics even while preserving eligibility of the readable text. And it still looks shiny and attractive

Matte – This kind of finish is perfect for text-heavy documents. It appears smooth yet not as shiny as the other kinds of finish. It also removes fingerprints.

Uncoated – Stock that has not been coated with any sealant. UV or Aqueous coating cannot be applied to this type of paper.

Custom Printing Options That Stand Out

Your materials must be effective in conveying your message, but a unique finishing solution is a simple way to make your project more appealing to your audience. Below are some of the popular customizations you may choose to incorporate in your next project.

Embossing – Love to feel the designs and texts as you run your fingers over the paper? Using high pressure, embossing uses a specially-made die to create these impressions.

Metallic Ink – Using ink with fine reflective metallic particles create a look you won’t see around. To get that shiny and lustrous look, gold and silver are the go for.

Foil Stamping – By using heated die to stamp foil to paper, you can create design that shimmer and add texture to certain texts or graphics.

Die Cut – From straight out of the normal curves to perfect circles to the outline of imagines and company designs, die cutting helps create an infinite range of contours.

There are plenty of printing customization combinations. Knowing paper weight thickness, coating types, and finishing options will help ensure your next printing project is a success.

Clash Graphics Print Shop Atlanta Flyer Printing

2233 Peachtree Rd NE Ste 202 Atlanta, GA 30309

(678) 235-3464

To view the original version on Clash Graphics, visit: http://www.clashgraphics.com/printing-tips/printing-paper-weight-thickness-conversions-guide/

Marketing With Custom Printed Banners

People usually associate marketing of business with only online means like email marketing and blogging. However, there are equally effective ways of marketing businesses with the aid of tangible items such as printed banners. It is a perfect means of advertising if there is a large gathering. In this article, you will learn how to use a banner as a means of advertising in a festival, conference or trade show. Then contact www.clashgraphics.com to print this custom banner.

Define your target audience

Knowing everything about your ideal customer is the first thing you should be aware of before you create a banner. Determine the specific location where your target audience would be. It is also important to know that everyone is distinct in their own way. Therefore, you should cater for every individual difference.

For instance, people with different personalities attend a sporting event. Therefore, you must find the particular thing that would appeal to all of them. The banner should communicate this appealing thing, and it should be concise enough to pass along the message as quick as possible.

Branding with a Custom Banner

People learning about your brand should feel emotionally connected to it. They should feel happy and excited whenever they see your brand. You need to ensure that your banner triggers an emotional reaction.

Ensure that your banner has its uniqueness so that it could catch the attention of the people. Since you have only a few seconds or minutes to catch the attention of the audience, it is important that the banner has a strong image and personality. In order to design an amazing banner, these are some of the questions you need to answer:

• Can your audience relate to your brand’s value by merely looking at your banner? Is the banner simplified enough so they wouldn’t have to look for long before they understand the message?
• What should be their next step or action after seeing your banner?
• Is the uniqueness of your brand properly represented in the banner?

These considerations will ensure the proper messaging and design of your banner. Remember your goal is to capture attention, communicate a message, then create an action.

What’s Next After I Capture the Attention of the Audience?

It is necessary for you to determine the next cause of action you want your target audience to take after gaining their attention through the banner. Do you want them to visit a website, call a number, visit your office location, attend a seminar you are putting in place, etc.? Ensure the banner complete its advertising purpose it is intended for, and it should lead the audience to what they are to do to move one step closer to your business.

An Efficient Event Advertising Product

It is highly important for you to note that you would have only a few seconds to catch the attention of your target audience. Therefore, it should be concise but meaningful enough to pass along your intended message as quick as possible. In other to do this, you need to think the way your target audience would.

Check if the vinyl banner is attractive enough to draw the attention of the people at the gathering. Your banner should be unique and distinctive since there would be other banners at the event that would be competing with yours for attention. This is a big moment to let everyone know about your business; you need to make it count.

Employ the services of the best graphic designer to help you design your banner to pass along the intended message in an effective way. Your banner is a very powerful marketing tool, and you should make use of it to advertise your business to a large and visible audience.

Clash Graphics Print Shop Atlanta Flyer Printing

2233 Peachtree Rd NE Ste 202 Atlanta, GA 30309

(678) 235-3464

To view the original version on Clash Graphics, visit: http://www.clashgraphics.com/printing-tips/marketing-with-custom-printed-banners/

Marketing your Business or Product with Custom Stickers

Stickers have always been a part of advertising campaigns thanks to their durability, affordability, and eye-catching nature. With the help of digital printing technology there are now endless possibilities when it comes to designing stickers. It’s also never been cheaper to order the finished design in bulk packages.

Stickers remain one of the most versatile and affordable marketing solutions on clashgraphics.com. Below we’ll be taking a look at the advantages of stickers, along with where to leave them and how to benefit the most from using them as a part of your marketing and promotional campaigns.

Everyone Loves Stickers

Who doesn’t love sticking stickers? I’m not sure if they love it because of the way the adhesive smells, or if they just get a kick out of decorating things with stickers, what matters most is that everyone loves doing it. How many laptops and car bumpers have you seen plastered in stickers? These stickers have meaning and they have value because they let people express themselves and the brands they use and associate with. With some cleverness, a polished design, and in particular if you have a lifestyle brand, you can be sure that someone will use your stickers to decorate something.

Design the Stickers to Fit the Brand

One of the main benefits to using stickers is that they can be custom designed to generate a great response from a small budget. There are many ways to customize stickers, including all the different shapes, sizes, and colors they can be printed in. You can create a star-shaped sticker, a round sticker, or a sticker that has been meticulously cut into the shape of the logo of your company. Get creative with the design and consider how you want the stickers to be used.

Best Places to Put The Stickers

One of the most important things in marketing is novelty. Your stickers will get more attention if they are left in unexpected places. If the sticker shows up in a surprising place, then the customer is more likely to see it and pay attention to it. The following are some for the best places to put the stickers.

On an Entrance Door - Plenty of companies have found creative ways to use glass entrance doors as part of their sticker marketing campaign. Find ways you can take advantage of the movement and transparency of glass doors to enhance and promote your brand in clever ways.

In restrooms - Public restrooms are a great place to put stickers, whether on the mirrors, the hand dryers, the floors, the sinks, and even in the stalls. There’s generally only one place for your eyes to go when you use the lavatory. Putting the right sticker in the right place creates a compelling message and is an effective way to deliver a sales pitch.

On walls or ceilings - If there’s some big sales event at the retail location, then you should plaster the walls in stickers to draw the attention of customers, create interest, and deliver a call to action. Ceilings are another good place for stickers, especially in places where customers will spend time looking up (such as using a dentist char, in the mall, or climbing stairwells). Custom stickers are a great way to create an effective marketing campaign.

Affordable and Efficient All-Purpose Marketing Material

If you’re looking to reach a large audience and improve product awareness, then this simple but impactful marketing method is a solid choice. There are plenty of different ways to promote a brand, but not many of them are as effective, affordable, and attention-grabbing as a good custom sticker. Durable stickers produce great results in the short-term, with a lifespan that allows them to continue to deliver in the long-term. Investing even a small amount in custom stickers boosts sales and brand awareness, while being so cheap that it pays for itself plenty of times over.

Clash Graphics Print Shop Atlanta Flyer Printing

2233 Peachtree Rd NE Ste 202 Atlanta, GA 30309

(678) 235-3464

To view the original version on Clash Graphics, visit: http://www.clashgraphics.com/printing-tips/marketing-your-business-or-product-with-custom-stickers-/

Tips to Design the Best Business Cards

Think of all the business cards being exchanged during random encounters. No matter the situation, you aspire that your business card will leave a lasting impression and demarcate credibility and trustworthiness to your clients.

Effective business cards provide information about you and convey the essence of your organization. After dialogue, exchanging business cards encourages the receiver to follow up with you. As part of your identity, a business card personifies you, the giver, and reflects what your organization represents.

Check out the multitude of business card options available http://www.clashgraphics.com/business-cards-printing-in-atlanta. Then learn what we found from interviewing top designers to find out what they believe makes an excellent business card.

What Makes a Great Business Card

In examining well-done business cards, you will find they share these qualities – bold, visually appealing, and unique. When a card can be described using these adjectives, more than likely it will be valued and not just tossed aside.

If we simplify the purpose of your card, it is to represent your organization and provide the receiver the necessary contact information. With this in mind, there’s a balancing act between aesthetics and function. Of course a beautiful design is desirable, but never lose sight that finding and using your contact information is a core purpose of this marketing material.

Things to Consider During the Design Process

A designer’s task is to successfully balance and lay out certain elements — logo, contact information, website, social media addresses, tagline, art — into an uncluttered and attractive design. The graphic designer aims to create a business card that is memorable, evokes a certain feeling, and makes an emotional connection.

One may ask, how is this goal achieved? An experienced visual designer has a knack and skill for making the proper selection and use of colors, imagery, typography, attitude, production material, copywriting, shape, and textures. Similar to a photographer or filmmaker’s ability to create an emotion or mood using film, a good graphic designer leverages the print medium to create memorable designs and marketing materials.

How Custom Printing Options Help Create a Unique Card

As your card will be held and seen, it is important to create a unique experience. In consideration of the tactile nature of print, selecting paper that has a unique feel helps dictate a specific experience. Rounded edges influence how the card feels and makes the card less traditional and conservative in appeal. Engraving, embossing, and letterpress are other techniques to create raised lettering or an indented mark in the card. Any of these customizations can accentuate how the card feels, helping your card stand out and leave an impression.

Now consider the slew of custom options that will impress the visual sense of the receiver. For a logo that has a unique mark or strong shape, die cut is a process to cut a specific or precise shape into a cards surface. The use of colored edges is another great customization and method to implement a brand’s color. Foil print is a custom process of adding a metallic silver or gold to the surface of the card, making it hard to overlook.

Overall, customizations should be implemented as a way to differentiate and communicate what your organization stands for. Customizing your cards is an opportunity to make the receiver think, “If they took that much time on their cards, imagine the level of attention they will invest into their business and services.” Choose wisely and align the values of your company with the selection of your business card’s custom options.

Common Business Card Design Mistakes

Over the years, designers and business owners have cluttered their cards with too much information. Everything from fax numbers, cell and office numbers, email addresses, social media profiles, office locations, and other information can come across as desperate and overwhelm the client.

When someone is compelled to get in contact, they will naturally. Typically, your phone, email and website are enough information and provide sufficient avenues for contact. After designing and printing, there are marketing mistakes you will want to avoid. However, besides overly busy designs, information overload is the most common design mistake.

Seal the Deal by Incorporating These Tips

There are a myriad of ways to design a business card; however, the main goal is to capture attention, pique curiosity, and encourage contact and inquiry by the receiver.

The overall design and printing process of the card should speak to the company’s values and approach to business. If the company specializes in luxury products — the printing process should reflect that.

You want a card and design that represents the caliber of work you perform, but be unobtrusive and memorable. Implement these tips and create the business card that gets you noticed.

Clash Graphics Print Shop Atlanta Flyer Printing

2233 Peachtree Rd NE Ste 202 Atlanta, GA 30309

(678) 235-3464

Originally published on: http://www.clashgraphics.com/printing-tips/tips-to-design-the-best-business-card