When a person takes a first look at a piece of printed collateral from your company, they probably don’t do an in-depth analysis of its color matching, paper weight, or print quality. If a B2B retail partner receives a catalog from your organization, their first action isn’t to inspect the binding and see how expertly the catalog was assembled.
All the same, these and many more “invisible” features have a real impact on whether people notice your print collateral, interact with it, and respond to it. Here are a few “extras” that few people outside the print industry think about, but that you can use to your advantage to attract more attention from people you want to do business with.
Transparent Raised Ink
This is a great example of a printing technique that makes a piece of printed collateral look professional, high quality, and exciting. Instead of simply printing with colored ink on paper, this advanced technique uses a specialized powder and heating process to apply a glossy, shiny finish to the ink. The result is text and images that literally pop off the page, grabbing the attention of the reader and setting itself apart from other printed materials that look drab and flat in comparison.
Printing On Specialty Substrates
Not every print project is based on paper and ink! If your print provider can print with high quality directly onto glass, vinyl, acrylic, foil, and other unusual surfaces, or “substrates,” it opens up a wide variety of possibilities for striking marketing and publicity products. For a small business, this option can be used to create materials for use in public-facing areas like lobbies to project a highly professional image. This offering is also great for creating unusually striking materials for use at trade shows and conferences, where visibility is of prime importance.
Die Cutting and Other Edge Options
For some print materials, the boundary between the piece of collateral and the rest of the world can be a uniquely defining part of its look and feel. Wedding invitations often make use of specialized edges and die cutting, but these can lend a spectacular boost to many other types of collateral as well.
Ultraviolet Coating
Ultraviolet coating conveys an effect related to that of transparent raised ink. This is a layer that is applied to a piece of print material after it is printed. After application, the layer makes the entire piece look glossy, finished, and beautiful. It also serves a practical purpose by protecting the ink from smudging and blurring if is scratched or otherwise damaged along its journey from the printer to the final recipient.
Various Binding Options
The right type of binding for any given project depends on several factors. Price is a major one, as binding techniques vary widely in cost. It also depends on the size of the project. Some binding techniques can only be used effectively with a specified minimum number of pages, while others can be equally successful with any number of pages. Another factor is the desired level of quality for the final product. A commemorative book, for example, needs to have a binding that reflects its contents, while a simple catalog or employee training manual can be adequately bound using a simple option such as perfect binding.
Spectra: Your Source For Print Excellence
Spectra offers all of these as well as many other print options to make every one of your print projects look and perform at its very best. Our experience in print and distribution encompasses printed materials from official communications to marketing mailers and everything in between, and our facility includes the equipment needed to produce each item with the nuances it requires.
Many of our specialty ink colors, textures, and special features come from our use of the highly advanced HP Indigo 7900 digital press. This press, which leads the commercial print industry in digital print excellence, allows our team to print on a variety of substrates with a range of different inks and overlays. Its interface also makes it easy for our clients to print short runs of projects, opening up possibilities to produce materials that were formerly cost prohibitive.
Our facility is also fully stocked with binding and other finishing equipment to apply saddle stitching, perfect binding, comb binding, plasticoil, and other techniques to catalogs, books, manuals, and other large projects. We tailor each finishing technique to the right project so that our clients are delighted with the finished product when it comes off the press.
No Substitute For Expertise
The biggest “secret weapon” in creating exceptionally effective print materials that grab attention, however, is practical expertise on the part of our team. Our print managers are bona fide experts in the print industry, with decades of experience and training to draw from. We not only have access to the HP Indigo 7900 press and other powerful print equipment, but we know how to use that equipment to its full potential for the benefit of our clients.
This knowledge is also an important asset to our clients during the planning and proof stages. As you tell us what you’re looking to print, our experts can present you with ink options, paper varieties, specialty techniques, and binding possibilities, showing you examples of what each would look and feel like. Together you and your project manager will quickly hone in on the parameters that will make your print collateral incredibly attractive and effective for whatever purpose it has.
Get Started With Spectra
If you know that your organization’s print materials could be better, it’s time to start the conversation with Spectra. Our facility is ready to take your projects and make them better than you thought they could be! Explore our website to learn about some of the highly specialized print projects that we specialize in, from eye-catching marketing mailers to large format printing for use at trade show booths. Then send us a message to talk with us about your next great print project.
