Tag Archives: Print and Graphic Design

Summer Vacation Activities

Summer Vacation Activities

Memorial Day is coming up and that means that school will be out soon for the summer. What now? Your kids will need something to keep them busy for the next several weeks, in between outdoor activities and summer roadtrips. Here’s an idea: create custom activity books, coloring books, or trading cards just for them!

It’s easy to make unique games and activities for your family. You can send us photos to use on custom trading/playing cards, or even buy printable coloring sheets on sites like Etsy to have us print. There are a myriad of options and ideas out there and there is almost no limit to we can make. Coloring books are an affordable way to keep your kids entertained on rainy days or long drives. Let them draw the designs of the coloring and activity pages, then send them to us to turn into bound books that they helped create! They’ll show off their books to their friends back at school and be the envy of their friends.

Coloring pages and activity books is just the beginning of what you can accomplish. Do your kids love to play card games? Why not make a set of playing cards with family photos on the backs, or a collection of young art pieces? You can really make a deck of cards that is only for them. It is an easy way to make them feel special and unique. The best part is we can do all the work! You send us files and images, we do the rest. Another idea is to make a family themed board game to play around the table on game night. The possibilities are endless!

Choosing the right paper, material, and size for your project is what we specialize in. All you’ll need to worry about is having fun with your family this summer.

Coloring BookColoring Book Page by Robo Roku

Customer Loyalty Cards

When is the last time you showed your customers some love? Aside from the excellent products and service you give them, that is. There are a ton of ways you can show your appreciation for the people that keep the lights on, so to speak. You could just throw them a party and call it a night, but you want them to have a reason to come back and keep shopping with you long after the free buffalo wings and ginger ale are gone. One way to do that is to create Customer Loyalty Cards.

A loyalty card not only serves as a business card to remind your customers where they were, but it also promotes loyalty…it’s right there in the name! Set up a promotion that requires them to come back and shop with you on multiple occasions in order to receive a discount or free gift. You’ll be surprised by how many return shoppers you’ll get. Everybody loves a discount; create a punch card that helps customers keep track of how far away the free smoothie is and you’ve created a game that people won’t mind playing.

Loyalty cards can be anything you want them to be, but as an example, let’s imagine a physical card that nets the holder a free pizza bagel when they buy 7 (assuming you’re in the pizza bagel business). A small business card sized piece of cardstock with tiny pictures of pizza bagels on it can be all that you need to get your point across. Every time the card is brought into the shop, stamp it or punch and the happy pizza bagel fan will be overjoyed that they are only 2 bagels away from that free food. Even if you can’t give away one of your goodies for free, you can create a loyalty program based on a total purchase discount.

“Buy 7 pizza bagels and get 20% off your next purchase!” for example. It’s all about making the customer feel loved and appreciated. The end prize doesn’t really matter, it’s the journey that they’ll remember most every time they come through your doors.

Loyalty Cards

 

Brand Identity 101

brand identity

Let’s talk Brand Identity. What is it?

*”A brand’s visual identity is the overall look of its communications. Effective visual brand identity is achieved by the consistent use of particular visual elements to create distinction, such as specific fonts, colors, and graphic elements. At the core of every brand identity is a brand mark, or logo.”

When is the last time you gave your business a facelift? Is your logo outdated, are your colors reflecting your business the way they should? We know you’re busy, but it’s good to take a moment to review what you’re putting out there.

Here are some things you should consider if your brand is in need of some polishing up…

  • Why do you think you need to rebrand?
  • Has your customer profile changed?
  • Are you stuck being viewed as something that you (or your customers) have outgrown?
  • Does your brand tell the wrong (or outdated) story?
  • What do you want to convey? To whom?
  • Has there been a change with your competition that is impacting your growth potential?
  • Is your brand out of step with the current needs and desires of your customers?
  • If you were starting your business today, would this be the brand identity you would want?

Your brand identity should tell a cohesive story from your logo, to your website, to your marketing materials, to your business cards. Take a look at your branding and see if it’s still telling the story you want it to tell.

*source

What Should You Put On Your Business Cards?

Did you know for every 2,000 business cards you give out, company sales increase by close to 3%? That’s a lot of power in a small card you can easily give out. Here are some tips on making your card stand out and stay in your customer’s hands.
 
Business Cards

Quality

If your cards have a little more weight to them, they’ll feel worth keeping, and stay in good shape. Your clients will see your investment in your card as your investment into your business. Show them you know you’re worth it.

Design

You want the design of your card to showcase your logo, who you are, and what you do.

Who Are You

Put a name and title on your card to connect with your clients. Include a tagline or description of what you offer, otherwise they could forget and your card will end up in the trash.

Communication Options

Not everyone likes to communicate the same way. You need to give your clients options to reach you, otherwise you’ve wasted an opportunity.

Email address

Web Address (aka URL) — putting your web address gives them another way to contact you, since you should have a contact page on your site.

Phone (if you put business and personal, make sure to note which is which) — believe it or not, calling is still some people’s preferred method of contact.

Physical Address — if you business is primarily online a physical address is not necessary. Only include it if you have a storefront.

Social Media

Focus on the channels that resonate with your client base (and where you are active).

QR Code

These can take up a lot of space, so evaluate if you have enough room on your card for it, and if your potential clients are likely to use it.

Call To Action

Why not add a sentence to say “email me today for a quote!” or “visit our site”? Calls to action can influence your potential client to reach out.

Proof

Before you approve your cards to go to print, make sure your proofread everything. Get a second set of eyes from your office on the content, you know what your contact information looks like, but sometimes you can glance too quickly and miss something small like a switched number.

 

Now that you know what should go on your business cards, let’s go to print so you can give those cards out and increase your sales!

 

Make Mother’s Day Special

special mother's day gifts
Mother’s Day is just one month away. That gives you a month to come up with something more than flowers and candy
(though don’t forget the flowers!). We have some ideas to help you make this coming Mother’s Day even more special.

Create a family tree
We can take your family tree and design it to be frame worthy.

Family calendar
While we are closer to mid-year, this will give you an instant gift idea for next year, too. The calendar can have family birthdays and anniversaries pre-printed, and feature family photos for every month.

The old trusty coupon book
We all know what mom really wants is to spend more time with you. We can design a more grown-up version for you to give.

Enlarge a wedding, anniversary, or a family photo to be framed
We can do color corrections, and even clean up some of those old torn photos.

Put together a family yearbook
Pull photos of everyone in the family and show everyone’s milestones. We can help with design and layout and bind it up nicely.

We hope this list helps spark some ideas to give your mom something unique this year. Let us know how we can help you create something special.

Binding Options

After we print your files for you, let us help you keep them together with one of the many binding options at P&B Print. Not all options are right for all types of bound materials, so here are just some of the possibilities for binding your book or photo album:

Coil Binding / Spiral Binding

Probably the most common binding choice you’ll find at your local printers (like us!) is coil binding, also known as spiral binding. It consists of a coiled strip of plastic that loops through holes punched into your paper. It is available in a variety of colors and sizes and is a sturdy and secure option for both thick and thin books.

Coil Spiral Binding Options

Comb Binding

Comb binding (or GBC) is composed of a set of plastic “teeth” that are hooked into a set of square notches punched into the paper. You don’t see comb bound books as often, but they can still be found in the wild. The main advantage to this type of binding, is the ease of page removal and you can add new pages to the bound set without destroying the binding. The down side to this is that it isn’t the most secure of the options available to you. Books bound in this fashion lay flat when opened and it is best for thick books.

Comb Binding Options

Tape Binding

The least secure of these three types of quick binding is the tape bind. It is a thin strip of book-binding tape that is coated in glue. The tape and the stack of pages to be bound are put into a machine that heats the glue and adheres it to the spine of the soon-to-be-book. Once it’s cool and dry, the glue holds the pages in a similar fashion to a book you might find in a store. The downside? You can’t really lay a tape bound book open flat. If you force it, the spine can crack and the glue could release some of the pages. Tape binding is good for manuscripts or something where a plastic spine would normally get in the way.

Tape Binding Options

Saddle-Stitch

You’ve probably seen this type of binding in instruction manuals or small magazines. A large stack of printed paper is folded in half and then stapled at least twice along the spine to hold it together. This binding option is usually the cheapest and fastest, though it typically only holds around 20 sheets of larger paper (which translates to a 40-60 page document). Saddle-stitching is relatively strong and can lay flat when opened completely, though it will take a little smoothing out at first.

Round Rock Market Days

This weekend marks the first Saturday of the month, which means that it’s Round Rock Market Days! From 9am to 4pm on March 5th, come down to Centennial Plaza in Round Rock, TX and shop the myriad of vendors ranging from handmade crafts & fine art to yummy food vendors. P&B Print will be there, as usual, and we’ll have some FREE goodies if you stop by and say “hi”! We recently created these fun drink koozies, so get yours before they are gone!

koozies

Invites for Baby News!

Baby Announcements

Do you have a baby on the way? Let us help you create the graphics for your gender reveal parties, baby announcements, and baby showers! We know how exciting and overwhelming it feels when you find out you have a new baby on the way. As parents ourselves, we can help you share the news in the way that suits your life best. We’d love to help you share your excitement with your family and friends.

Setting up Bleed for Print

Bleed for Print

One of the most difficult concepts to understand in printing is Bleed. Don’t worry, it’s not as dangerous or messy as it sounds. It’s a way of planning for the inherent imperfections in the process of turning your files into printed products.

P&B Spot Business CardsIf your design has color or elements that run off the edge of the page, you’ll need to add a BLEED to your document. Think of it as the extra bit around the edges that can be cut away without affecting the design. Printing is ultimately a mechanical process; paper enters a machine (in this case a printer or press), ink is applied, and it comes out the other side. Every sheet of paper that runs through the machine can shift and move by a sixteenth of an inch or more because that paper has such a long path to travel.

This is oversimplifying a bit, but the basic idea is there. If we didn’t take these shifts of paper into account, when the sheet is cut out, you may see extra white paper around the edges of the offending sheets. To avoid this, we want to stretch the color of the design out past where we want to cut it. This way, even if it shifts, we won’t see it.

NOTE: Another tricky-wicket when designing can be borders. If you have a solid border around your artwork, you’ll want to make sure that it extends INTO the Safe Zone of your design by at least.25″. This way, when your print is cut the border will appear even despite the variances in printing. Otherwise you could end up with a lopsided border that isn’t consistent throughout the run of prints.

 

Bleed Guide

Cut Edge: This line represents the finished cut edge of the piece.

Live Area (Safe Zone): The area that is considered safe to keep information or important elements within.

Bleed Area & Edge: The more bleed, the better. This area is the overage you need to provide if the color of your design goes all the way to the edge. Keep in mind anything in this area will be cut off, but you need something here so you don’t get white space at the edge of your finished card. Printers tend to shift minutely when printing, so not every sheet is always perfectly aligned, this extra space accounts for that shift.

The absolute minimum bleed you need for a printed piece is 0.125 in (1/8 in) per edge but some pieces require more than that. So if you are working with an image in Photoshop or Illustrator and placing it in InDesign for print preparation, keep in mind the area you might need to use for the bleed.

Crop Marks: Indicates where the print shop with cut the paper to create the finished piece.

Photo Restoration

Photo Restoration

Do you have a shoe box in the closet full of old photos from a time before cell phone cameras? Just because the memories have faded, doesn’t mean the photos have to. Saving those pictures from the ravages of time is more important now than ever, because your collection of physical mementos is shrinking by the day as your world becomes more digital.

Don’t worry! We can restore those photos and reproduce them so you’ll have plenty of copies to hold on to for posterity. Whether it’s a family photo from the mall or your great-grandparent’s wedding photo, we can restore color and remove dust and scratches to make it look better than the day it was taken.

Photo Restoration

After we work our magic, we can print them at any size, and on a variety of materials. Need an 8×10? We can do it. Need a wallet-sized photo? We’ve gotcha covered. How about a ten-foot-tall banner with your baby photos on it? We can do that, too.

Give us a call or come in with your old pictures, and let our designers restore them today!