Ever wondered what the finished style might be for you next print project?

Most estimate requests that come through to me tend to be unclear on the “finished style” required. Maybe you are unsure what this means. So let me help you out here with some of the more common methods used.

For leaflets – we all love the straight forward and simple…. Fold – where your piece of print is either folded in half, into three, concertina folded, roll folded etc. Absolutely ideal for any type of leaflet, folded posters, take away leaflets etc

For Brochures, Books, Reports, etc this is a little more complicated…..various options to choose from but the main ones are…

Saddle stitched –Stitching is a method of binding one or more printed sections together by means of wire staples (stitches) through the spine and centrefold. This method is fast and cost effective.

Perfect bound –  Perfect Binding is a method for binding the printed sheets using a glue to bind the text pages into the cover. This method is great for thicker books, where saddle stitching can’t get the job done. Perfect Binding is most commonly used on paperback books.  It’s elegant and professional. It can be pricey for smaller runs and is not suitable for very thin books (saddle stitched best here – see above).

PUR Binding – this is very similar to perfect binding but uses a more durable and flexible glue. It is nearly impossible to remove pages from a PUR Bound book. Ideal for printed items that need to be long lasting reference tools or need a longer shelf life.

Wiro bound –  A method for binding loose leaves using a series of metal wire loops formed from a single continuous wire run through punched holes on the binding edge. Great for Notebooks, Calendars, etc

If you’re mind is still not made up then give me call and I am more than happy to discuss any of these options in more depth to make sure you choose the right finishing style!

Every so often, a client asks for a job to include what is known as “throw outs”. These are pages that fold out away from the foredge of a publication to create a spread that is wider than the rest of the job, and may themselves fold again to form multiple leaves. These can be very useful in highlighting a particular image, such as a map, or a wide format picture that cannot easily be accommodated in the format of the rest of the job, for example, but they do require a bit of thought at the planning stage.

Whether a job is saddle stitched or perfect bound, it will usually go through a three-knife trimmer after the staples or glue are applied. This cuts the job flush at both head, foot and foredge. When a throw out is included it is usually necessary to ensure that the folded edge falls short of the intended trim for the rest of the job, or there would be a risk of cutting through the fold, leaving a loose sheet of paper.

Similarly, it is also necessary to ensure that the edge of the page that folds back towards the spine also falls short of the spine edge (particularly with perfect bound jobs), or there is a risk that it could be stapled or glued into the spine, leaving the spread completely inaccessible. On perfect bound jobs we would recommend that the edge of this page is planned to fall about 10mm from the spine, since even if the page edge stops short of the spine, it can risk being difficult to recognise as a separate page if it is too close, causing the reader to turn over the folded leaf as if it is a regular page.

As above, the page (or pages) that fold back towards the spine need to be smaller than the rest of the job, but in order to avoid the three knife trim, the page which abuts the fold out page also needs to be smaller (page b in diagram). And what applies to one side of the piece of paper naturally also applies to the other, so the pages that make up the back of the spread need to be sized to run from smallest to largest, left to right.

This also means that when creating the artwork for a spread containing a throw out, the regular sized page on the other side of the spine – page (a) – needs to be included.

These considerations mean a bit of careful calculation is needed on the part of the designer or planner of the job.

But when all these factors are peoperly taken into account, it is possible to create stunning effects with the use of well planned throw out sections.

Moving swiftly into 2012, I am sure everyone is working hard keeping to their new years resolutions. On the business side of things I am sure plans have been made to attain new clients for business. Or perhaps a new startup is part of the plan for 2012.

Why not impress new clients with a branded marketing folder to organise all your marketing materials?

To make life easier for designers, I made folder templates for A4 documents, available to download. The templates are vector format in Adobe Illustrator and as a PDF. Both templates have one pocket and a business card slot for a business card of 85mm wide X 55mm high. If your business card is a different size, you can change it accordingly. Grab your folder templates for print here!

Printed A4 Folder .AI/.PDF Templates

Don’t have Adobe Illustrator or need a new marketing folder designed? Contact Printhouse Corporation to design your folder and of course Printhouse can look after the printing and finishing too!

Having known Shaylesh Patel, the founder of Healthy Planet, for years through both work (initially via BNI Hammersmith) and on a personal level, I’m always keen to support his ventures where possible. As this latest one happens to be on the doorstep of PrintHouse Corporation, it would be rude not to get involved …

So I called over to the Vision Warehouse (in Kendal Avenue, Acton) on Friday morning, to be greeted by a BBC Breakfast camera crew, also a vast area being filled with a wide range of “stuff” i.e. unwanted gifts, books, furniture, games etc …

Photo credit John Brookes

Rather than going into much more detail here, if you click on www.stuffforfree.org.uk it will tell you far more about how/why it operates with specific dates for i) donating any unwanted goods and ii) picking up things that you would like to take away. In a nutshell, it provides a conduit for redistributing quality “stuff” to new homes with the environmental benefits of re-using existing materials, also making great use of the warehouse premises while vacant …

Shaylesh has this wonderful knack of coming up with “win-win” ideas that, in additional to benefiting all parties who get involved, supports green & healthy issues at grassroots level.

Photo credit John Brookes

At PrintHouse, we’ve been delighted to assist Healthy Planet with the printing of an eclectic mix of materials, ranging from standard leaflets, posters, labels and folders, through to bespoke bookmarks and luggage tags. As we’ve FSC environmental certification and are always keen to develop & promote this side of our operation, it’s a longstanding link that makes perfect sense, too.

If not already done so, I suggest you kickstart 2012 in a constructive, environmental way and get in touch with the team at Healthy Planet …

Useful Links

www.stuffforfree.org.uk
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16518228
www.healthyplanet.org
www.bni-hammersmith.co.uk

When choosing one product over another, the design of the packaging probably influences your decision far more than you realize.Effective packaging design breaks away from the standard rules and conventions that we are accustomed to, giving the product a unique edge to stand out from the rest. The packaging should appeal to your target market. It’s also vital to ensure that you’re conveying the necessary information about the contents and quality of the product, while triggering the desired emotion to your brand.

Working in packaging design is a tough area. I found a lot of clients wanted to stick to something bland and safe so consumers didn’t form too much of an opinion on whether they liked the product based on the packaging. So when you get a client like Orexis wanting to think out of the box i commend them for being a bit gutsy and creative.

Below are some examples of Packaging i have done for Orexis Fresh Foods.

With this idea i had to incorporate the name Aphrodite, using the goddess of love and the island to create a unique dip sleeve for various flavours.

I also have done packaging for a company called Veg with Edge. They wanted to have a fun, child-like element to these designs, by using bright colours, small quirky characters and cartoony icons. Altogether there were 8 different styles to these.

And the last idea was for a product called, “Stop, Sit, Dunk, Dip”. This style was more clean, crisp and easy to recognise with a lot of white space and funky typeface.

So as you can see there are many directions you can go when it comes to creating the right kind of packaging. Whether it be traditional, fun or clean as showed.

Mark Jope is a Graphic Designer at London based printer PrintHouse Corporation.

Creep is where the bulk of the paper in a saddle stitched booklet causes the inner pages to extend or creep further out than the outer pages when folded. The illustration shows an exaggerated view of how the inner pages of a saddle stitched booklet creep out and extend beyond the edge of the outer pages when folded.

Creep Allowance

The amount of creep allowance needed depends on the size of the margins, number of pages, and the thickness of the paper. A booklet with few pages and wide margins might not need creep allowance because the difference after trimming is not noticeable. With more pages, smaller margins, or bulkier paper the creep becomes more noticeable and can result in loss of text if there is no adjustment made. If creep is noticeable, copy can be repositioned toward the centre of the spread for those pages in the middle of the booklet. When trimmed, all pages will have the same outer margins and no text or images are lost. Some page layout software can automatically calculate creep allowance and adjust layouts for creep — moving the page elements of affected spreads in small increments.

Calculating Creep Compensation

Printing companies will have charts or some type of software that uses the number of pages and thickness of the paper to calculate the amount that the layout needs to be moved toward the gutter to keep the margins even after trimming.

Formula for amount of creep:

Total pages in book, divided by 4 (for each 4 pager), times paper thickness. Take that number, and divide it by the number of flat sheets in your book. This number will be quite small, but will represent the amount that you should adjust each page’s outside margin, as you get closer to the center of the booklet. This works in most cases but using a folded, drilled, dummy of the actual job stock is best.

How to use a folded dummy that has been drilled (holes) to figure out how much creep allowance to use. This is also suggested by other sources as the best way to make sure that the correct allowances are used. First, make a dummy using the actual stock that you’ll print on, fold and drill it. By removing the 1st 4-pager and placing the center 4-pager inside, the drill holes will not line up and will show the exact amount of  creep to expect on that particular paper stock.

Use a previously printed saddle bound magazine of the same stock and page count, open to the center spread and lay the magazine flat, now measure the distance from the trimmed edge of the innermost page to the trimmed edge of the cover, this is the required adjustment needed.

These are some of the examples to compensate creep. If you are sending a document to a commercial printer, they will impose it and adjust for creep. If you are printing from an office printer, you can allow for creep in InDesign. However, if you are using another application to print a booklet, you will need to allow for creep manually.

At this time of year our thoughts quite rightly go out to those who are a less fortunate than ourselves, with I hope most of us doing what we can to try and make a difference, no matter how small.

At Xmas time we’ve traditionally printed vast numbers of cards, passing on a portion of the proceeds to a select group of charities. This offering, shared by many of the UK’s printers, has, since 1983, raised in excess of £5m for good causes, an amount not to be sniffed at. These days the requests we receive for corporate cards has reduced considerably, with many of the larger forms choosing to donate the monies they would have spent directly to charities of their choosing. Whilst commercially this may hurt us,we at PHC do nothing but applaud such generosity!!

Yet our charitable work doesn’t start and end at Xmas, rather it’s a year long thing. As you can no doubt imagine we get at least a call or mail a week asking if we can ‘donate’ printing that’s either being sold to raise funds for, or being to used to promote the worth of, any one of a plethora of good causes. The desire to say yes is always there, but in real terms it’s simply not practical. As such we select at the start of the year those we feel we can and wish to support and stick reasonably stringently to these. Most are customers of ours either directly or indirectly, and working with people we know assures us that anything we donate is properly used.

Amongst those we’ve partnered this year are PriceWaterhouseCoopers (they put on a panto each year that is seen by thousands of disadvantaged children for which we produce the programme and a fundraising calendar at cost), Healthy Planet (all manner of items as their work ties in with our own strong pro-environmental actions), Rowley Recreational Trust (various leaflets, posters, invites, brochures for one of London’s primary community sports providers) as well as fundraising calendars offered with large discounts for both Macmillan Cancer Care and The Girlguiding UK. In addition we part sponsored the students at Central St Martins College of Art & Design (long standing clients of ours) for their end of year show, the first time it’s held at their stunning new Kings Cross site.

We couldn’t help in the way we do without the considerable generosity of our paper suppliers, so a big thank you on behalf of those we’ve been able to support to EBBS, Antalis and Paper Co.

As I’ve said, we would love to help everyone and would love to give everything away for free, but we can’t!! However, if you are a charity or other good cause do feel free to get in touch. Our standard rates make us competitive in the extreme, and if you notify us at the time of enquiry about the event/product you are try to promote we will, I promise, do what we can to at least offer the best discounted rates possible.

Until then here’s wishing you all a very merry Christmas and a happy, healthy 2012.

In previous post I’ve described the planning of a small product photography studio. Several weeks of decorating, installing and one burned drill later the studio space has been finished and fully equipped, so let’s see how it came out and how it is set up.

• Part 1: Planning, budget and design
• Part 2: Realisation, setup and workflow
• Part 3: Printed product photography examples

The room

In the beginning there was …not much. But with a bit of imagination and paint the place could be transformed into something more.

Decorating in progress

The result is a nice, welcoming space and fully functional Photographic Studio.

Finished Studio

Computer access for tethering and editing

All the bits & pieces

As mentioned in earlier post, the room’s small size meant there might be a risk of accidental light bounce off the walls and affect photographed objects. According to some Internet research the best would be black but it would create a truly gloomy atmosphere and that could affect the whole experience in a negative way. Therefore a middle ground or “mid-grey” or “NCS 6000-N” was chosen for the walls and any furniture had to be black. From first test shots I can say that it worked and even highly reflective objects seemed not to reveal any details of the room.

Setup

In terms of the photographic equipment, our Studio ended up having an entry-level Canon EOS 550D camera with very capable but still attractively priced Canon EF-S 17-55 f/2.8 USM IS lens, all sitting on a Manfrotto 055-B tripod with 3-way head. For the flash lights I chose Elinchrom BXRi range for its great quality/price ratio. It received very positive reviews, it doesn’t cost a fortune and includes accessories that normally would need to be purchased separately — built-in radio triggering and two softboxes. The last obvious item was backdrop system for which I chose three Colorama 1.35m paper backgrounds (white, graphite and black) mounted on a Interfit wall bracket. We managed to recycle some desk tops while clearing the room and sturdy Mac Pro packaging has been converted to trestles. The Mac Pro boxes make very flexible trestles since their sides are of different size, thus allowing putting table top at varying height.

Elinchrom BXRi 250 Flash with 66cm softbox

Workflow

And finally, all the photographic yield would be fed to a fast hard drive on a computer running Aperture, a great photo management and editing software from Apple. All the best shots from each photo session would be uploaded to Aperture, tagged, corrected if necessary and ready to be used on the Web or in print, the latter you should consider doing with us!

We can help you with photographing any small and medium objects in our brand new Photo Studio. Contact us for details.

Want a printing estimate fast?

Before I proceed, let me define fast:  normally 24 hours or less.  Everybody wants their estimate quick but others in 30 minutes or under.  Estimators do not like wild goose chases, nor do they like overly dense, ponderous, or exceedingly vague estimate requests.  As an estimator, nothing is more frustrating than lack of detail when requesting a quote.

Rather than ask me to throw darts with you – paper selections often demonstrate this ambiguity – you should have most of your specifications decided before contacting me.  Think when you write, quantity, how many pages, stock, ink, binding, and so on. If you can’t answer all the questions then get the answers before you submit your request. The secret to getting a fast estimate is in knowing what you want. An estimate is the easiest thing in the world for me to provide based on clear, simple and concise specifications.  How many? Size?.  Paper?  etc. Ambiguities slow things down and result in a more longer turn around time. If you do get stuck then pick up the phone and give me a call. With the wealth of print knowledge at Printhouse I am sure we can get the right specifications for your print job.

Just so we are clear:  I’m not saying don’t ask for options as I am sure there are plenty of them.  What I’m saying is:  The more options you want, the longer the estimate will take.  It seems a simple enough concept, but you would be surprised how few people grasp it.

So……fast is 24 hours or less.

Want it fast?  Keep it simple.

We must have printed hundreds of jobs that are finished as “perfect bound” books. This means the text sections are folded, and “milled” (to produce a rough edge that glue will adhere to on the spine edge); then they are gathered one on top of the other, and a cover with a spine is wrapped around the text blocks, with glue injected into the spine to hold the text sections in place, before the whole thing is trimmed on three edges to produce a neatly finished book. (We usually recommend a slight variant of this process called “PUR binding”, which is the same process, but uses a stronger glue.)

In order to make the books as strong as possible, the binder creates what is known as a “hinge flap” on the front and back covers. This is created by placing a crease approximately 5mm from the edge of the spine. The glue that is injected into the spine also goes here, so that for this small area the cover glues down flat onto the first and last text pages. If you check any books produced in this way you will find that most have this feature.

However, this creates a problem in the supply of artwork that is almost never addressed in advance. This is, that if the intention is to have an image that reads over between the inside front cover and first text page (or the last text page and inside back cover), an allowance needs to be made for the image being lost in two places; both on the inside of the front cover and on the first text page.

Below is an example of what one of our clients wanted to act as a spread on the inside front cover and first text page of a book we produced for them.

If we hadn’t made the adjustments for the hinge flap allowance, we would have ended up with something like this.

To correct this problem, in fact you have to duplicate the image twice, and (in the case of the front cover) move the duplicated left hand side to the left, and duplicated right hand side to the right, to allow for the two areas being lost. So in the end what you print will look something like this.

But of course, when the duplicated areas are stuck to each other, what you will see will be the image going (seamlessly – we hope) across the join.

The same applies (in reverse) to the inside back covers.