Paperspecs

Upcoming Webinar: Direct Mail: Pushing the Envelope

Howard Hu — Wed, 22 May 2013 14:00:21 +0000

Tuesday, June 4, 2013
2:00 – 3:00 p.m. Eastern
(11:00 a.m. – Noon Pacific)

Need a fresh perspective on how to design great direct mail campaigns? Wishing you could find clear information and a straightforward approach to direct mail? Our next free webinar has just what you need!

Two of the industry’s most knowledgeable experts, Trish Witkowski (foldfactory.com) and Daniel Dejan (Sappi Fine Paper), will be on hand to identify the most critical aspects of direct mail — strategy, format and analysis.

During the webinar, Witkowski and Dejan will discuss:

Direct Mail Strategy

The All-Important List
Marketing Strategies
Making The Offer

Direct Mail Format

3 Critical Rules
Format Options
Engagement

Direct Mail Analysis

Testing Techniques
Tracking Mechanisms
Measuring Results

Webinar attendees will be the first to receive a copy of the new ACT Now! direct mail guide from Sappi. It’s a creative and comprehensive resource that will surely become your go-to guide for success with mail.

This webinar is free thanks to the generous support of Sappi Fine Paper North America. Space is limited so be sure to reserve your seat today for this free webinar at www.paperspecs.com/webinar.

Free Paperspecs Webinar: “Direct Mail: Pushing the Envelope”

Howard Hu — Wed, 22 May 2013 14:00:21 +0000

Tuesday, June 4, 2013
2:00 p.m. Eastern (11:00 a.m. Pacific)

In this free PaperSpecs webinar sponsored by Sappi Fine Paper North America, attendees will discover clear, simple and effective strategies to creating direct mail campaigns that get results. Plus all attendees will get a FREE bonus gift.

Palo Alto, California – May 22, 2013 – “The audience, the message, the offer, the format, technology integration, and creative engagement techniques … there are many considerations in planning a direct mail campaign,” says Sabine Lenz, founder of PaperSpecs.com, “and I have this advice: put a clear process in place to coordinate all the working parts or you’ll find it a daunting and sometimes painful experience.”

In PaperSpecs next free webinar, “Direct Mail: Pushing the Envelope,” designers and brand marketers will learn precisely how to create and implement an effective direct mail plan that will work for them.

Two of the industry’s most knowledgeable experts will be on hand to identify the most critical aspects of direct mail — strategy, format, analysis. You’ll hear about:

Clear action steps for designing effective direct mail
Inspired engagement techniques and formats to fit any budget

Special Guest Speakers
Trish Witkowski, chief folding fanatic at the online resource foldfactory.com, has a specialized expertise in creative solutions for direct mail and print, and is the curator of the world’s most exciting collection of folded print and direct mail samples.

“I want to give designers and marketers a foundation of knowledge and the confidence to use direct mail as a primary marketing medium,” says Witkowski, who has been deeply focused on all things direct mail over the past few years.

North American ETC Print and Creative Manager for Sappi Fine Paper, Daniel Dejan is an award-winning graphic designer, art/creative director, production manager, and print buyer. He is widely respected in the print communications industry as a graphic arts educator, author, and consultant.

“Direct mail can be highly effective—it’s also inclusive, reliable, tech-savvy, and tangible,” says Dejan, “and everyone should know how to use it to their best advantage in today’s media mix.”

Webinar highlights:

Direct Mail Strategy

The All-Important List
Marketing Strategies
Making The Offer

Direct Mail Format

3 Critical Rules
Format Options
Engagement

Direct Mail Analysis

Testing Techniques
Tracking Mechanisms
Measuring Results

Added Bonus Gift
Webinar attendees will be the first to receive a copy of the NEW ACT Now!direct mail guide from Sappi. It’s a creative and comprehensive resource that will surely become your go-to guide for success with mail.

Who should attend
“Direct Mail: Pushing the Envelope” will be of interest and benefit to designers and brand marketers wanting to know more about the end-to-end process of creating effective direct mail by giving them a foundation of knowledge and the confidence to use mail as a primary marketing medium.

PaperSpecs webinars are developed to include inspiring real-world examples, highly useful and easily implemented tips, cutting-edge perspectives from industry thought leaders, and results of the most current research.

Thanks to the generous support of Sappi Fine Paper, “Direct Mail: Pushing the Envelope” is free and open to the public. Space is limited though, so be sure to reserve your seat today for this special event at www.paperspecs.com/webinar.

About Daniel Dejan
An award-winning graphic designer, art/creative director, production manager, and print buyer, Daniel Dejan is widely respected in the print communications industry as a graphic arts educator, author, and consultant. As North American ETC Print and Creative Manager for Sappi Fine Paper, Mr. Dejan provides value-added marketing, sales and technical consultation as well as in-house and end-user training and education for the print, paper and creative communities. He is member of Sappi’s ETC Group: Education, Consulting and Training.

About Trish Witkowski
Trish Witkowski is chief folding fanatic at the online resource foldfactory.com. An educator, author, speaker, and award-winning designer, Trish has a specialized expertise in creative solutions for direct mail and print, and is the curator of the world’s most exciting collection of folded print and direct mail samples. Trish has authored many books on the topic, most recently Direct Mail Simplified, and Paper Folding Templates for Print Design. She also hosts a popular weekly e-video series “60-second Super-cool FOLD of the WEEK.” Trish holds a Master of Science in Printing and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design from RIT.

About Sappi Fine Paper North America
Sappi Fine Paper North America, known for innovation and quality, is a preeminent North American producer of coated fine and release papers and market pulp headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. Its coated fine papers, with highly recognized brand names such as McCoy, Opus, Somerset, and Flo, are used in premium magazines, catalogs, books and high-end print advertising. The company is also the world’s leading supplier of release papers for the automotive, fashion and engineered films industries, including the globally recognized Ultracast brand. Sappi’s release papers provide the surface aesthetics for synthetic fabrics used in footwear, clothing, upholstery, and accessories, as well as the textures for decorative laminates found in kitchens, baths, flooring, and other decorative surfaces. An integrated pulp and paper producer, with state-of-the-art pulp mills, Sappi is the third largest seller of hardwood pulp in North America. Sappi Fine Paper North America is a subsidiary of Sappi Limited, a global company headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa, with manufacturing operations on four continents in eight countries, sales offices in 35 countries, and customers in over 100 countries around the world. For more information, visit www.na.sappi.com.

About PaperSpecs
PaperSpecs is a small, independent team on a mission: To provide inspiring, objective, practical, up-to-date information about paper and printing technologies via easy-to-digest tips and tricks, entertaining back stories, and expert insights. PaperSpecs helps to guide creatives from their initial inspirations to the meticulously designed, beautifully printed and finished projects print and paper lovers cherish. PaperSpecs is exclusively for designers, print buyers and paper professionals who feel a deep passion for the tactile and powerful experience that is paper and print. You can connect with PaperSpecs on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

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Contact
Sabine Lenz
PaperSpecs
127A Coleridge Ave
Palo Alto, CA 94301
T: 650-321-5152

Gift Card Designs that Sell

Howard Hu — Wed, 22 May 2013 03:08:47 +0000

Who hasn’t purchased a gift card? Apparently, not many! The International Card Manufacturer Association says 3.4 billion (with a b!) gift cards were manufactured in 2011

In this free PaperSpecs webinar sponsored by Neenah Paper, Jim Moriarty, vice president of sales for PBM Graphics, and Elizabeth Corbett, director of Sales for New Business Development for Neenah Paper, will offer insights on trends in the exploding gift card market and examples of some of the best gift card designs in the industry.

View Webinar Recording
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Your QR Code is Awful Chatty Today

Erika Button — Tue, 21 May 2013 14:06:08 +0000

“If only QR codes could talk, what a wonderful world this would be.” Presumably this was uttered somewhere in Boulder, Colo. – land of hippies and fitness – as this month saw the introduction of “talking” audio QR codes from Boulder company Tokkers.

What might seem like just one more riff on a mostly-pointless marketing trend could actually be the first good QR idea since it left its birthplace in manufacturing. It neatly addresses the two bars to effective QR use: a lack of content worth the hassle of snapping the codes, and the fact that most people have little patience for reading a lot on their smartphones.

To set up an audio code:

Record your message using the on-site Tokker.com recorder, or upload an MP3 file of your own

Add an image, logo, links, video, contact info, headline and captions to the screen people will see on their smartphones once they scan the code.

Costs are a little high – from $25-$250-plus/mth depending on the number of times your code is scanned – but so is the flexibility when it comes to getting your message across. This is definitely one QR development to watch.

This Mohawk Notebook is no Dodo

Erika Button — Tue, 21 May 2013 14:05:18 +0000

There are some products you see that simply scream “Eureka,” not for what they are, but what they represent. DODOnotes from DODOcase and Mohawk fits that bill well.

DODOnotes are 5 ¼”-x-2 ¾” notebooks that feature a diecut groove on their cover that snuggly holds your iPhone 4 or iPhone 5 in place with the help of an elastic strap. Inside: 30 tear-out pages of Mohawk Superfine paper. The effect is something of a mashup of Moleskine, Field Notes and Apple, with a wee bit of old-world craftsmanship thrown in.

Though similar notebooks have been around for a short while – Levenger’s International Phone Pocket Briefcase comes to mind – DODOnotes is better adapted to the way people use notebooks and iPhones. You can grab your phone instantly and flip through your notes with ease – two things you can’t do with the Pocket Briefcase. The DODOnotes’ $14 price tag is also nice, compared with Levenger’s typical “luxury” pricing: $60.

The Dark Side of Logos

Erika Button — Tue, 21 May 2013 14:04:06 +0000

Most designers adore them. Many are hopeless at making them, and all have their favorites. But occasionally we get it wrong and create an identity that is fine aesthetically but somehow scars the psyches of those who see it. In the ’70s and ’80s it was the “satanic” Procter and Gamble logo. And earlier still…that of Screen Gems.

“The S from Hell,” a tongue-in-cheek short documentary that played Sundance and earned raves from the likes of The Hollywood Reporter, is an interesting watch from a design perspective. Those interviewed vividly recall being terrified by the Screen Gems image and accompanying synth music, which followed screenings of shows like “The Flintstones” and “Bewitched.” One person in the film notes its similarity to the black-and-yellow nuclear fallout sign.

Though clearly played for fun, “The S from Hell” is partially based on a real problem. Some people, especially the young, can react to your logos in some surprising, and surprisingly negative, ways. (Other apparent offenders include an early PBS logo and the “Neon Mickey” Disney used before its presentations.)

Check out the 8-plus-minute “The S from Hell” by Rodney Ascher below. (Note: There’s a slightly disturbing clip in there from “Halloween III” that some might not like to see – not gory, just….not for the squeamish.)

NewPage SHIFTERS its Thinking

Erika Button — Tue, 21 May 2013 14:03:23 +0000

It pays to do things your own way. That’s been NewPage’s drumbeat since its introduction last August of Sterling Premium, a premium grade coated sheet without the high-end price tag. To publicize this little shift in the paper business, NewPage decided to place Sterling Premium in the company of four other ventures that do things unconventionally. The result is its SHIFTERS publicity campaign.

While it tells the stories of those four businesses through social media and YouTube videos, the campaign’s primary vehicle is a print brochure called SHIFTERS, printed on Sterling Premium. NewPage also added an augmented-reality component to the brochure with the help of Layar technology. Holding a smartphone over a page featuring one of the four businesses triggers a video that briefly explains how that particular business is a “shifter” that took an unusual route to success.

Those companies are:

New Era Guitars: Maker of a new guitar with a vintage feel

Graeter’s Ice Cream: Uses old-fashioned methods to make premium ice cream

Shinola: Detroit maker of fine watches, leather goods, bicycles and journals

Del Popolo: A restaurant located in a refurbished shipping container on wheels, specializing in wood-fired pizza.

PaperSpecs PRO Members: Click here to order your copy of the SHIFTERS brochure today.

Yes, my Name IS on that Coke!

Erika Button — Tue, 21 May 2013 14:02:12 +0000

We’ve been on a fast march toward complete self-absorption for the last 15 years or so, hastened most recently by the miracle of the digital press. Earlier this month it was American school yearbooks packed with custom photos and covers tailored to each child. Now the UK is getting personalized bottles of Coke – both of these miracles brought to us by HP’s Indigo presses.

The “Share a Coke with…” campaign will see the famous logo replaced by one of 150 different names most common in Great Britain. The idea is to encourage people to buy a bottle with the name of a friend or loved one, and give it to them to enjoy as they guzzle a bottle emblazoned with their own name. (Oddly, the names are not in the iconic Coca-Cola typeface.) The campaign is modeled after a similar one the company ran in Australia.

As a marketing move, it’s beautiful and an inspired use of the digital press’ most powerful asset – variable-data printing. (Heaven help us, it even makes us *gulp* want to buy a Coke.)

$30 for the Secret of the Old Masters

Erika Button — Tue, 21 May 2013 14:01:19 +0000

Caravaggio, Vermeer, indeed many of the “Old Masters” of painting most-likely used cutting-edge technology of their day to accomplish the precise details we find in their works. While some view this as the art-world equivalent of saying there’s no Santa Claus, others would simply like to have access to that technology for the making of their own works. The gold standard: the centuries-old camera lucida, which projects the image of the painter’s subject onto the paper to be traced.

Discouraged by the cost of antique camera lucidas – $350-plus these days – art professors Golan Levin and Pablo Garcia decided to make their own portable version: the NeoLucida. Having sold an initial 2,500 through a Kickstarter campaign, the pair are now making an unlimited number of them available for $30 each.

Leo Burnett 77+ Anniversary Invite

Erika Button — Tue, 21 May 2013 14:00:56 +0000

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Like what you see?
Find out more and vote for Leo Burnett 77+ Anniversary Invite.

A Talent for High-End Design

Erika Button — Tue, 21 May 2013 14:00:49 +0000

FiberMark North America Inc.

A popular TV ad campaign for a financial industries company poses the question, “What’s in your wallet?” For Mexico City-based designers and manufacturers Leonhard A. Wasmer and Monica L. Yuen, however, the looming question would more likely be, “What’s on your desk?”

That’s the question Wasmer and Yuen asked each other once again a few months ago as they pondered how to solve a design challenge issued to them by one of their major clients.

The client, a leading pharmaceutical company, was seeking a custom-made promotional item for a brand awareness campaign targeted to opinion leaders in the neuroscience field. Wasmer & Yuen’s “solution” to their client’s needs makes for an interesting case study in how to effectively take an idea from concept to completion.

Building a niche
Leo and Monica have shared partnership of their growing firm since its inception in 2001. They’ve built a very creative design/manufacturing business based in the teeming metropolis of Mexico City, with workshop and production facilities located in nearby Cuernavaca. Over time, the duo has focused their work on an interesting niche: high-end desk accessories, specialty cases and boxes, as well as specialty packaging—designs that are mainly marketed to pharmaceutical companies. Their clients include Merck, Sanofi and Bayer, but also a smattering of financial companies, such as banks and stock traders.

W&Y has 10 core employees and, depending on its given project needs, draws from a pool of highly trained artisans to bring their staff to total around 50. Leo and Monica break up their responsibilities, with Monica handling production, while Leo concentrates on the business development side of their company.

Wasmer says their business direction with pharmaceuticals was strategic. “We chose this niche because these companies don’t order only seasonally,” he explains. “They have year-round needs for unique, high-end products that serve a very highly educated market. It enables us to bring into play all of the creative expertise we have to address form, shape, design, texture and touch, because our clientele appreciates these qualities insofar as helping them differentiate their brands from competing products.”

Answering a need
The aforementioned client approached W&Y seeking a product that would successfully convey a high-end brand message to an equally high-caliber audience, in this case psychiatrists and neurologists. Their brand representation to this segment had to convey a style and sophistication in keeping with that of the highly specialized medical professionals themselves.

“We needed to create a piece high-quality enough that the professionals who received it wouldn’t give it away but, instead, actually keep it on their desk and use it,” Wasmer explains. In their early brainstorming, Leo and Monica seized upon the idea of a very highbrow-looking desk set. “We reasoned that this was something that would be able to reflect these brands in both an aesthetic and functional way,” he adds.

As Wasmer and Yuen saw it, the desk set had to be sufficiently attractive, and of a high enough grade and perceived value to meet these professionals’ extremely discerning standards for anything they might have on display and in use in their offices.

Developing a process
After a brainstorming session with the client, Leo and Monica were tasked with coming up with a handful of ideas that would answer the client’s need. “What came out of this meeting was an understanding of what might work for the client—what might be feasible—based on cost, time of delivery and the pharmaceutical industry’s regulatory constraints,” Wasmer says. From there, it was a matter of developing prototypes made from “suitable materials.”

A longtime supplier to Wasmer & Yuen, FiberMark readily fit the “suitable materials” criterion Wasmer was seeking. He and Yuen decided on two latex-saturated decorative packaging materials from FiberMark’s Shadow by Corvon line.

“Shadow Weave” was used for the textured section of the deskset, and “Shadow Powder” on the other surfaces. “We were looking to create a very pleasant, tactile experience for the professional on whose desks these sets would sit,” Wasmer says. “These materials lent themselves to that idea perfectly.”

From the initial meeting with their client’s product manager, there were four phases: design and product intention/design concept approval; secondly, customer’s regulatory approval; then followed internal business approval by the customer; and finally, production.

The beauty of the deskset, besides its apparent simplicity, is in its attention to detail, as Wasmer explains. It incorporates a number of very striking accents: inlays and blind embossing and debossing techniques were used to great effect in several areas of the design.

Following strict guidelines
W&Y maintains a philosophy of working directly with their clients in all aspects of their design and manufacturing process. In that way, the design duo feels they’re better able to gain valuable insight and context based on their perceptions. “We can get a sense for where our clients are coming from in both a business and personal preferences perspective, to pick up on those subtle hints and finer nuances of a briefing, and take them back to our drawing boards,” Wasmer says.

One of the key elements in W&Y’s set of operating principles involves protecting its clients’ investment in the designs they produce. “The way we work with brand strategists from any company is to guarantee them exclusivity for their target audience,” Wasmer emphasizes. “It’s a promise of respect for our clients’ particular area of influence, and something that we guarantee for a negotiated time span. It’s essentially a way to safeguard our clients’ investment and ensure that it won’t be diluted by a similar design of ours reaching the market.”

Pride in the results
The desk set was a decided winner with their client. “It’s led to additional projects and follow-up orders from this customer,” Wasmer notes, adding that the design has sparked increased interest for products of this nature. “For instance, we are now awaiting supplier approval from two more main players in our current market niche. It’s a design with which we hope to win over new clients in different industries, too.”

In fact, based partly on their success with the desk set, and due to repeatedly positive feedback when using this type of material, W&Y is feeling ever more confident with its plans to further explore the U.S. market. The firm is now solidifying its intention to increase production capacity, in order, as Wasmer explains, “to approach some high-profile and up-and-coming companies in the beauty, jewelry, and perhaps the wines & spirits industries.”

Additionally, W&Y were named the Bronze Best of Show Winner in FiberMark’s 19^th Annual Specifier Awards competition in which design professionals are recognized for solving challenges through the exceptional creative and effective use of FiberMark products.

Want to add a soft, suede-like feel with a visual thermo-reactive color shift appeal to your next project? Click here to order either a Shadow by Corvon swatchbook or individual sample sheets – color and texture of your choice.

And visit FiberMark at the HOW Design Conference in June in San Francisco – Booth #1717 – to discover inspiration from a featured “FiberMark Faces…” collection of high-end designs and premium packaging from creative professionals like you.

For questions and inquiries, please email FiberMark at qfmk@fibermark.com.

………………….

Corvon is a registered trademark of FiberMark North America, Inc.

A Tale Where Paper and Digital Meet

Erika Button — Tue, 21 May 2013 14:00:28 +0000

This is the story of a story told through an unusual wooden notebook, a digital version holding even more secrets, and the actions of the people who received it.

Dubbed the first of its kind, the “These Pages Fall Like Ash” project last month sent its paying (about $18 each) audience to wander the streets of Bristol, England, using clues in the physical, limited-edition notebooks to discover various wireless hard drives scattered around town. (Participants read the digital content using their smartphones and Wi-Fi-enabled Tablet PCs.)

As story composer Tom Abba explained it, people found the hard drives because they had the book, which helped them make sense of what they found digitally, and vice versa. Yet “the two mediums behave[d] interdependently.”

In essence, each player became a part of the story, which was about two cities that exist in the same space simultaneously, and two people struggling to hold on to their fading memories. Author Neil Gaiman (“The Sandman” comic series, “Coraline”) was one of the writers involved.

And in case there’s any confusion about which medium Abba favors:

“I’m firmly of the opinion that the book – as an artifact we value, want on our shelves and will reread with increased pleasure – isn’t going anywhere. I’m also convinced that the eBook is nothing more than a pale imitation of the book.…. eBooks aren’t books, and they’re not digital writing either – they’re the worst of all possible worlds.”

Preflight Now or Crash n’ Burn Later

Erika Button — Tue, 21 May 2013 14:00:12 +0000

By Joseph Marin

Just as a pilot performs a number of system checks on the airplane before takeoff, it’s important to make sure that a print project doesn’t contain any serious errors that will prevent it from printing successfully.

Preflighting for print production is about examining all of the components that make up an eventual printed piece and comparing them against a checklist of potential known issues. If they “pass” the check, the job can move forward in the print production workflow. If they “fail,” something has to be done to correct the problem before proceeding. It is by default a methodical task that is typically performed by prepress personnel (no one wants to reprint a job because an error wasn’t found in time), but designers should also preflight their work before they send it off to their printers.

Software tools and a checklist are both critical to the preflighting process. Some of the things that a typical preflight checklist helps you examine:

Layout issues: Does the physical size of the layout match the specifications? Are all page elements there? Was the job created with a professional desktop publishing application? Are bleed elements there? Do graphic elements abut (will there be white gaps between objects)? Are any of the rules set to a thickness of “hairline,” or are they made up of a screen build?

Fonts: Are they supplied/embedded properly? What type of fonts are they? Are they from a valid foundry (i.e., will they RIP)? Were they menu styled? Has any type been set to a very small point size, and is small type made up of a screen build?

Images: Is there sufficient resolution for the printing or output method? Do the images contain unsightly artifacts? Is the ink density of shadow areas too high for the type of paper that the job is being printed on? Are the images compressed and, if so, by what type of compression?

Color: How many colors are supposed to print? What color space are the images/layout objects? Is RGB color used? Are spot colors indicated correctly and consistently? Which color swatch library was used?

Effects: Were transparency or other special effects used? Is transparency live or will it have to be flattened? Does the file contain layers? Are they all supposed to print? Are there annotations or other nonprinting objects in the file?

In addition to application preflight tools, there are also Web-based preflight and delivery tools, and PDF-creation and printer drivers that have preflighting built right in. These software-based preflight tools can detect many errors, but some problems require manual human inspection and intervention. Knowing what to look for is half the battle—that’s where the checklist comes into play. Download a Printing Industries of America sample preflight checklist that can be used by designers or in prepress; feel free to modify or change it to fit your needs specifically.

Preflight Diagnostic Tools for Designers
Preflighting tools for digital files are abundant today; there is really no excuse not to perform this necessary task. Adobe InDesign and QuarkXPress contain built-in preflight and packaging options. Adobe InDesign and Acrobat have easy-to-use diagnostic tools that can help you quickly assess and correct common print-related problems before sending the job off to the printer:

InDesign Diagnostic Tools

Overprint Preview: It’s critical to be able to preview on-screen objects that are set to overprint to avoid potential errors on press. Overprinting is the technique often used to create trap areas between adjacent colors in order to prevent white paper gaps from showing up on press. Black text is typically set to overprint for the same reason. With Overprint Preview turned on (View>Overprint Preview), you can see how inks will interact with each other on press. If the preview shows something that isn’t how the file should print, it gives you the opportunity to repair it before sending it off to your print service provider.

Flattener Preview: An extremely useful diagnostic tool for checking to see if fonts will be converted to outlines in Adobe InDesign (and Illustrator) is the Flattener Preview palette (Window>Output>Flattener Preview and Window>Flattener Preview, respectively). By selecting the various options under the Highlight pull-down menu, you can preview which objects are transparent on a page, which objects will be affected by transparency, and which fonts (if any) will be converted to outlines.

Live Preflight: Live Preflight (Window>Output>Preflight) sounds exactly like what it is. It can be set up to alert designers to potential problems as they arise, rather than after the design is complete. When an error is detected as the design is being created, the problem can quickly be found and corrected. Live Preflight can be configured to alert you to many common file problems including low-resolution images, unwanted spot-color plates, improper image color spaces, and more.

Acrobat Diagnostic Tools

Document Properties: The Document Properties dialog box is a great way to quickly determine how a PDF was created (File>Properties). It also contains other document information such as PDF version, security settings, and whether all fonts have been embedded. The Fonts section of the Document Properties dialog box lists all of the fonts used in the PDF file and whether or not they have been embedded. When scrolling through the list of fonts, if Embedded or Embedded Subset is not listed next to the font, then the font was not embedded in the PDF.

Output Preview: The Output Preview tool in Acrobat Professional can be used to preview overprints and separations in a PDF. Here you can see at a glance all of the colors used in the document. Colors can be toggled on and off to show where and how they are being used in a document. Output Preview is a great way to make sure that black text is set to overprint simply by toggling the black channel on and off. If a white knockout of the text shows up when the black is turned off, it hasn’t been set to overprint. If the background color shows up solid, then the black text has been set to overprint properly. It’s also an easy way to make sure the same spot color hasn’t been specified multiple times with slightly different names. Output Preview also provides feedback on the color build of any object when the cursor is dragged over that area.

Overprint Preview: As with InDesign, Overprint Preview shows how inks will interact with each other on press. If the preview shows something that isn’t how the file should print, it gives you the opportunity to repair it before sending it off to your print service provider. Overprint Preview is turned off by default (both in Acrobat and the free Adobe Reader) and must be activated in the preferences of each application. Select Acrobat (or Reader) (Preferences>General). Next, select Page Display from the list. In the Use Overprint Preview pull-down menu, choose Always.

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Joseph Marin is senior instructor/manager of training programs for the Printing Industries of America, and is one of the industry’s leading voices on digital technologies, including all things related to succeeding in a digital print environment. He is also the lead instructor in the best-selling Printing Industries of America workshop, “Orientation to the Graphic Arts,” and develops custom training programs for major industry manufacturers and suppliers. Marin is the author of the “Prepress Skills Training Program,” “Process Control Primer,” “Digital Prepress Primer,” and co-author of “The PDF Print Production Guide,” all published by Printing Industries Press.

Define Your ISM

Erika Button — Mon, 20 May 2013 21:50:38 +0000

Petres Designs shows us just how creative you can get with black ink in this amazing special edition catalogue for a nonprofit organization that supports collaborative creativity among different people with many different beliefs.

The designers visually communicate the group’s ethos with hundreds of cables weaving in and out through the pages of the book, which ultimately link back to an enormous switchboard (done as a gate-folded center spread that I wish had been a tear-out poster).

I love the theme – a play on words that springs from the client’s name (ISM) – egoISM, veganISM, modernism, etcISM. Many volunteers got to contribute their ISM for the book, and photos of the participants run throughout the piece.

The cottony feel of the 80 lb. Crane’s Lettra Cover and the hand binding imparts an artistic sensibility and quality that transforms this from a promotional piece to a keepsake.

Please rate this piece and add your comments below:

2011 Holiday Cards

Erika Button — Mon, 20 May 2013 21:38:13 +0000

A card, a book and a poster – all rolled (or should I say “folded”) into one forward-looking holiday greeting. Now there’s cause for celebration!

The multi-functional design from Rios Celementi Hale Studios and notNeutral is deceptively simple. An 11 x 17 sheet with eight carefully sized panels is slit in the middle and folded neatly into a book. Each page tells us what we have to celebrate in the year ahead – from Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee to the 50th anniversary of Andy Warhol’s Campbell Soup cans. Once unfolded, the inside reveals a poster that asks we commit to planting a tree in the New Year.

Digitally printed on the warmth of 80 lb. Mohawk Navajo White Text, the red, black and grey palette looks festive. The grainy images give the card a nostalgic vibe, which is what most of us are feeling at holiday time. Type choices and placement keep it all happily contemporary.

Please rate this piece and add your comments below: