You may be surprised to learn that when the jewellery brochure above was printed, all the colours - from the deep green and burgandy backgrounds to the delicate skin tones of the model - were created by combining just four different inks:

C - cyan
M - magenta
Y - yellow
K - key (or black)

CMYK is the colour model used in full colour printing (which is also referred to as four-colour printing and process printing). By overlaying various tints of these four inks it's possible to reproduce a vast range of colours.


If you're interested in the science click here...

If we haven't been introduced yet, I'm Tom. How you doin? I'm in a couple of unsigned bands which is cool but it doesn't exactly pay the rent :-( so during the day I run an online printing company - stressfreeprint.co.uk. We mostly do leaflet printing and flyer printing but we also produce posters, tickets, folders, stationery and CD/DVD inserts. So if you want to promote your band or company check out our website for more info. Hopefully we'll be able to help you out sometime. Take care. Tom ;-)

An encapsulate is a sheet of clear plastic - you can choose from a range of thicknesses or 'grades' - which is applied to both sides of a piece of paper. It extends beyond the edges of the paper, usually by around 5mm, sealing the paper within. It offers far greater protection than a laminate and, as long as the plastic seal remains intact, is waterproof. Encapsulation is usually reserved for use on ID badges and wipe clean menus.



Be aware that, in the UK, leaflets which are usually VAT zero rated (you do not have to pay VAT) become subject to VAT standard rating (you pay VAT at 17.5%) if lamination or encapsulation is applied. HM Revenue & Customs consider a laminated or encapsulated leaflet as something which is intended to be retained by your customer rather than to be read and then thrown away.

For more information about HM Customs rules regarding VAT on printed matter visit my blog.

If we haven't been introduced yet, I'm Tom. How you doin? I'm in a couple of unsigned bands which is cool but it doesn't exactly pay the rent :-( so during the day I run an online printing company - stressfreeprint.co.uk. We mostly do leaflet printing and flyer printing but we also produce posters, tickets, folders, stationery and CD/DVD inserts. So if you want to promote your band or company check out our website for more info. Hopefully we'll be able to help you out sometime. Take care. Tom ;-)

• Commercial printing companies print onto standard sized paper. If you specify an unusual size which doesn't fit neatly within a standard sheet size, you will be paying for the paper which is cut off and thrown away. Adjust the size of your document so that as many copies as possible within a standard sized sheet.
  
  
• Some printing companies will only produce standard sized documents or impose a surcharge for non-standard sized work. Always confirm the cost before you spend time creating artwork.
  
  
• If you intend to distribute your document by post, make sure you can source a suitably-sized envelope.

The C series of sizes is reserved for envelopes - a C4 envelope being ideal for holding an A4 sheet of paper.

The other series which you may come across is SRA which is used by commerical printing companies. It is slightly larger than the A series to provide room for grip, trim and bleed.

SRA0 - 900 x 1280mm
SRA1 - 640 x 900mm
SRA2 - 450 x 640mm
SRA3 - 320 x 450mm
SRA4 - 225 x 320mm

If we haven't been introduced yet, I'm Tom. How you doin? I'm in a couple of unsigned bands which is cool but it doesn't exactly pay the rent :-( so during the day I run an online printing company - stressfreeprint.co.uk. We mostly do leaflet printing and flyer printing but we also produce posters, tickets, folders, stationery and CD/DVD inserts. So if you want to promote your band or company check out our website for more info. Hopefully we'll be able to help you out sometime. Take care. Tom ;-)

One of my regular customers rang me this morning wanting to cancel their leaflet printing order. They we're working to a tight budget and decided it would be cheaper to print 250 A5 leaflets using a HP inkjet printer they'd borrowed from a friend.

What they hadn't considered was the true cost of inkjet printing. I recently came across a test report in Computer Active Magazine which found that the average cost to print just one A6 colour photograph using a desktop inkjet printer was a whopping 45p! On that basis, had my customer gone ahead and printed their own leaflets, it would have cost them £167 more than if they'd left it to us.

After reading the Computer Active report, my customer had a rethink and decided they didn't want to cancel their order after all. Cheers Computer Active!

If we haven't been introduced yet, I'm Tom. How you doin? I'm in a couple of unsigned bands which is cool but it doesn't exactly pay the rent :-( so during the day I run an online printing company - stressfreeprint.co.uk. We mostly do leaflet printing and flyer printing but we also produce posters, tickets, folders, stationery and CD/DVD inserts. So if you want to promote your band or company check out our website for more info. Hopefully we'll be able to help you out sometime. Take care. Tom ;-)

What do other people think of your organisation?

In my experience, if you have a firm idea of how you want to be perceived by your potential customers you will be able to influence their opinions. If they're left to form their own opinions, you run the risk of being unfairly pigeon-holed - your target audience could decide that your products or services are not aimed at them or that they're too expensive, or even too cheap.

Positioning will determine the type of customer who's drawn to your promotional message. A discount carpet warehouse will often promote an "amazing cut price deal" with a basic flyer featuring big bold lettering and simple line drawn illustrations. If the same company designed their leaflet using carefully crafted copy, classy photography and expensive printing techniques, their target audience would take one look and assume their products were luxury items with a hefty price tag. Their target audience will look elsewhere.

Your position within the marketplace is determined by many factors such as the quality, price and perceived value of your products and services. My most successful customers are those that are honest and play to their strengths. Positioning yourself at the luxury end of the market may mean you can demand a premium price but if the perceived value of your product doesn't match your positioning, you'll have difficulty generating sales. There's a lot to be said for 'stacking em high and selling em cheap', making up for lower profit margins through increased sales.

Whatever positioning you decide upon, you need to ensure your target audience instinctively knows they're 'shopping in the right shop'. The design and quality of your promotional literature will need to reflect and enforce your chosen positioning. Collect examples of other leaflets, adverts, brochures and websites from companies with a similar market position and with a similar target audience to your own.

Does your literature portray your company in a similar light? If not, you might want to take a trip back to the drawing board.

If we haven't been introduced yet, I'm Tom. How you doin? I'm in a couple of unsigned bands which is cool but it doesn't exactly pay the rent :-( so during the day I run an online printing company - stressfreeprint.co.uk. We mostly do leaflet printing and flyer printing but we also produce posters, tickets, folders, stationery and CD/DVD inserts. So if you want to promote your band or company check out our website for more info. Hopefully we'll be able to help you out sometime. Take care. Tom ;-)

'Bleed' is an essential part of creating artwork for print. Professional designers will always extend (or 'bleed') background elements and images beyond the edges of the document by an additional 4mm or so. This prevents unwanted white borders around the edges of a printed document_..

To read the rest of this article visit my blog.

If we haven't been introduced yet, I'm Tom. How you doin? I'm in a couple of unsigned bands which is cool but it doesn't exactly pay the rent :-( so during the day I run an online printing company - stressfreeprint.co.uk. We mostly do leaflet printing and flyer printing but we also produce posters, tickets, folders, stationery and CD/DVD inserts. So if you want to promote your band or company check out our website for more info. Hopefully we'll be able to help you out sometime. Take care. Tom ;-)

A 'target audience' is the main group of people your organisation wants to appeal to and communicate with. Speak to any marketing expert and they'll always stress the importance of identifing your target audience before you begin any marketing activity.

Although it's tempting to try to sell to anyone and everyone, it's an expensive approach which is almost always less successful than restricting your message to a specific group of people. If you attempt to 'preach to the masses' your sales messages tend to be so generic and unspecific that you don't engage anyone - potential customers don't feel as if you're talking to them or catering for their specific needs. Instead, my advice is to speak directly and only to your ideal customers.

If you've read other articles on my blog, you'll have gathered by now that I run a leaflet printing company. In actual fact that's not quite true. I run a company that designs and prints all sorts of things: leaflets, letterheads, business cards, greetings cards, folders, posters, reports... Even so, I target my promotional activities toward people who want to buy full colour leaflets via the internet.

The reason for this is simple. Printing is a very labour intensive process. By concentrating on producing leaflets, we've been able to streamline our production facilities and reduce our prices, thereby attracting lots of new customers. If I attempted to promote all my products, my marketing costs would increase dramatically. Instead, I concentrate on promoting my most profitable product line - leaflets. That said, we still get loads of orders for other print items - mostly from people who've had leaflets printed by us and who return to us for their other print requirements.

My target audience is quite broadly defined. Many companies need to be much more specific. Imagine you own a hair and beauty salon. Your most profitable customers would probably be female professionals in their 20s and 30s who live within a few miles of your premises. This type of customer would be willing to pay a premium for expert styling advice and are likely to want additional services like colouring and beauty treatments. If you target your promotional activity toward these people, they'll deliver the best return on your investment.

What type of person would you describe as your ideal customer? Picture them:

- What do they buy from you?
- How often do they buy from you?
- Are they male or female?
- How old are they?
- What car do they drive?
- What do they watch on TV?
- Where do they shop?
- What do they do in their spare time?

Once you've identified your target audience, you need to figure out the best way to reach them. If, as in our hair salon example, your customers are located within a very small geographical area, you should probably consider a leaflet drop, supported by adverts in your local newspaper. If your customers are scattered throughout the country, a national campaign may involve posting fout leaflets to people who already buy products which complement your own, alongside an advertising campaign in market-specific publications.

Successful marketing campaigns rely on a mix of different communication methods. Monitor the results over time and refine how and where you deliver your message but always keep one person in the front of your mind... your ideal customer.

If we haven't been introduced yet, I'm Tom. How you doin? I'm in a couple of unsigned bands which is cool but it doesn't exactly pay the rent :-( so during the day I run an online printing company - stressfreeprint.co.uk. We mostly do leaflet printing and flyer printing but we also produce posters, tickets, folders, stationery and CD/DVD inserts. So if you want to promote your band or company check out our website for more info. Hopefully we'll be able to help you out sometime. Take care. Tom ;-)

OK, OK. The title of this article may be a bit of an exaggeration but bear with me here...

When designing a leaflet or an advert, a lot of people make the mistake of using their logo or company name as the most prominent element within their design. It's placed centre stage, big and bold, acting as the first thing potential customers see.

target audience is made up of existing customers - they've already experienced your services, they're familiar with your logo and should be interested in finding out more. However, if you're trying to attract new customers, is your company name really enough to stop Joe Public dead in his tracks? Probably not.

Why should it? It means absolutely nothing to them....yet. I'm not saying you shouldn't include your logo somewhere within your design - you'd be a fool not to. However, you only have one chance to grab the attention of your prospective customer and that chance may only last a fraction of a second. Don't waste it.

Read my Show stopping headlines article to find out what should be the most prominent element of your design.

If we haven't been introduced yet, I'm Tom. How you doin? I'm in a couple of unsigned bands which is cool but it doesn't exactly pay the rent :-( so during the day I run an online printing company - stressfreeprint.co.uk. We mostly do leaflet printing and flyer printing but we also produce posters, tickets, folders, stationery and CD/DVD inserts. So if you want to promote your band or company check out our website for more info. Hopefully we'll be able to help you out sometime. Take care. Tom ;-)

In the UK there is no law against placing leaflets on parked vehicles as long as you don't:

• damage the vehicle
• cause an obstruction to the highway
• trespass on private property

However, I wouldn't recommend the traditional method of placing your leaflet under a car's wiper blades for a number of reasons:

If you accidentally damage a car's wiper blades, you'll be liable for the cost of repair. I've also learnt to my cost that drivers can get quite irate (to put it mildly!) if they don't see your leaflet when they first return to their car. Once they've gone to the effort of pulling over to retrieve an annoying piece of paper that's been fluttering before their eyes, they're hardly going to be in the best frame of mind to read and act upon your sales message.

To read the rest of this article visit my blog.

If we haven't been introduced yet, I'm Tom. How you doin? I'm in a couple of unsigned bands which is cool but it doesn't exactly pay the rent :-( so during the day I run an online printing company - stressfreeprint.co.uk. We mostly do leaflet printing and flyer printing but we also produce posters, tickets, folders, stationery and CD/DVD inserts. So if you want to promote your band or company check out our website for more info. Hopefully we'll be able to help you out sometime. Take care. Tom ;-)

If you're creating artwork for print, you'll only get decent results if you've got a basic understanding of image resolution. Don't worry, it's actually quite a simple concept - nowhere near as complex as some people seem to think. So stick with me here, I'm going to try to make this as painless as possible...

What is resolution?


If you zoom into a photograph on your PC monitor
you will be able to see the grid of pixels which make up the image


The grid of dots which make up a printed photograph
can be seen using a magnifying glass

The resolution of an image is usually measured in dots per inch (dpi) or pixels per inch (ppi). Essentially dpi and ppi refer to the same thing, it's simply the number of dots or pixels which make up an image.

If you view an image on your computer monitor its resolution will need to be at least 72dpi to appear sharp and clear. A lower resolution will result in large pixels which will be detected by your eye, resulting in a fuzzy or 'pixelated' image. However, if the same image were reproduced on paper using a commercial printing process it would need a resolution of around 300dpi to achieve a sharp result.

A printed image requires a much higher resolution than an on-screen image (4 times greater to be precise). Therefore, just because your image looks sharp and crisp when viewed on-screen, it doesn't mean it will reproduce correctly when printed.


The image above has a resolution of 72dpi.
It looks sharp and crisp when viewed on screen.


If the same 72dpi image were reproduced in print
using a commercial printing press, it would appear
fuzzy and pixilated. The only way to improve its
appearance and increase its resolution would be to
reduce the size at which it is reproduced.

Improving the resolution of an image

Unfortunately, the resolution of an image is determined at the time of its creation. You cannot increase the resolution of an existing image. If you 'upsample' an image, i.e. you attempt to increase the resolution of an image, your computer will merely generate extra pixels and guess what colour these should be based upon the characteristics of surrounding pixels. The result is a blurry image with ugly blocks of colour.

The only way to effectively increase the resolution of an image is to reproduce it at a smaller size. Resolution and size are inversely proportional to each other. In other words, if you enlarge the size of an image, you lower its resolution. If you reduce the size of an image, you increase its resolution. You'll have seen this effect whilst zooming in and out of a photograph on your computer screen. Therefore, if your original image is 300dpi and measures 100mm x 100mm its resolution will drop to 150dpi if it's reproduced at 200x200mm.

Your image editing software should provide information as to the size and resolution of your image. You will need to use this information to calculate by how much you can enlarge or reduce the image to achieve a resolution of at least 300dpi.


You can view and adjust the size (dimensions) and resolution of
your image in Photoshop using the 'image size' box (see above).
Most image editing software applications have similar functionality.

You can read the rest of this article on my blog

If we haven't been introduced yet, I'm Tom. How you doin? I'm in a couple of unsigned bands which is cool but it doesn't exactly pay the rent :-( so during the day I run an online printing company - stressfreeprint.co.uk. We mostly do leaflet printing and flyer printing but we also produce posters, tickets, folders, stationery and CD/DVD inserts. So if you want to promote your band or company check out our website for more info. Hopefully we'll be able to help you out sometime. Take care. Tom ;-)