ink – ImageBlog

June 16, 2017

USPS Stamps Have a New Feel – Textured Coatings & Thermochromic Ink

The USPS continues to excel with great design, print and marketing ideas in their innovative new postage stamps. Their newest releases take the plain printed stamp to a whole new experience level. They combine cool, engaging print techniques with a topical interest in current events and culture.

In honor of the America’s favorite sports, the USPS chose the kick off of the U.S. Open golf championship to debut a series of stamps with an actual “feel.” The Have a Ball! Forever stamps are round, and honor the sports of baseball, basketball, football, golf, kickball, soccer, tennis, and volleyball. Each has a special textured coating to simulate the surface of each ball. You can feel the baseball’s stitching, the golf ball’s dimples, the tennis ball’s seams, raised panels on a soccer ball and volleyball, and the unique patterns of a football, basketball and kickball. For the philatelist, you can order first-day-of-issue postmarks and first-day covers here. On Twitter, follow the hashtag of #Haveaballstamps.

To top that creative print idea, the USPS will commemorate a rare total solar eclipse, which crosses the entire width of the continental United States on August 21, with the Total Eclipse of the Sun Forever stamp. What makes this stamp as unique as the eclipse which it commemorates? The heat of your finger pressed onto the stamp will transform the image of the darkened moon blocking the sun into an image of the full moon. This is the first time the USPS has used thermochromic ink in printing stamps. This ink is vulnerable to UV light and, since it is a forever stamp, should not be exposed to direct sunlight to preserve the effect. For collectors, you can also purchase a special envelope to help protect the stamp pane. On Twitter, follow the hashtag #EclipseStamps.

Remember, the USPS receives no tax dollars for operating expenses. They fund their operations through the sale of postage, products and services.

Using an actual stamp – as opposed to a permit imprint –helps to boost “open rates” for direct mail marketing, providing a personal touch. For a specially targeted mailing of limited size, these textured and innovative forever stamps might prove eye-catching enough to pay for themselves in improved response.

Call us at 828.684.4512 for any marketing needs. As a printer, we understand communication and design. Your printer should be able to provide you with the latest information, inspiration, technical advice, and innovative ideas for communicating your message through print, design and typography, signage, apparel, variable data printing and direct mail, integrated marketing and environmentally responsible printing. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

ImageSmith is now partnered with Extreme Awards & Personalization – our in-house partner providing custom engraved trophies and awards for employee recognition programs, sporting events, and promotional needs. With our new sister company, we will be sharing space, resources and expertise in a collaboration designed to further provide you with one place to meet all of your marketing needs… Under One Roof! Visit them online at www.extremeae.com or call direct at 828.684.4538.

Call us at 828.684.4512. ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your print and marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.

November 16, 2015

Print Surprise: Optical Illusions at the Press

Optical illusions – where the perceived reality of a viewed object is different than the actual physical attributes being viewed – are interesting phenomena. Occasionally an unintended illusion will pop up in the print work here at our shop, and it usually takes a little convincing to prove to our press operators and art department that the problem is in the viewing…not a mistake in the print files or print process itself.

Gradients Can Trick the Eye

Above is the press sheet layout for a 4-up printed card which will later be cut out and folded in half. However, coming off the press, the 4-up sheets appear like the left side is darker than the right, especially on the outer side of the card. (In person, the effect was even more dramatic than it shows up here onscreen as it was printing on a metallic paper.) We were stumped at first as to what could cause this – the pdf file was preflighted, all the images were rendering correctly. We wondered about a problem with the press, the imagesetter, the layers within the pdf file. Finally, it took cutting a finished sheet apart by the crop marks to see that once separated, the gradients looked fine. Placed next to each other, the light to dark gradient tricked the eye into thinking one side of the press sheet was darker.

Repeating Patterns and Distortion

The 2-up sheets printed above have a decorative border with a repeating pattern that flows in one direction to the halfway point and then reverses its orientation for the second half on all four sides. If you let your eye wander slowly along the borders, especially the longer vertical sides, it appears that the borders are bent and not a perfect square shape overall. The eagle eyes of our press operator noticed the subtle “bend” in the lines and decided that either the file or the imaging plate itself was somehow warped. Placing a ruler or straight edge on the press sheet reveals that, despite what your eyes are telling you, the line is perfectly straight across all four sides of the paper.

You can read more about optical illusions and view galleries of them at a surprisingly great number of websites as many people find the tricks our eyes can play on us to be a fascinating topic.

Call us at 828.684.4512 for any marketing needs. As a printer, we understand communication and design. Your printer should be able to provide you with the latest information, inspiration, technical advice, and innovative ideas for communicating your message through print, design and typography, signage, apparel, variable data printing and direct mail, integrated marketing and environmentally responsible printing. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

ImageSmith is now partnered with Extreme Awards & Personalization – our in-house partner providing custom engraved trophies and awards for employee recognition programs, sporting events, and promotional needs. With our new sister company, we will be sharing space, resources and expertise in a collaboration designed to further provide you with one place to meet all of your marketing needs… Under One Roof! Visit them online at www.extremeae.com or call direct at 828.684.4538.

Call us at 828.684.4512. ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your print and marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.

June 4, 2015

“First Among Many”: Library of Congress Exhibit on Early American Printing

If you find yourself in Washington, DC this summer, the Library of Congress has a must-see, free public exhibit covering the foundation of printing in the American colonies. Called “First Among Many: The Bay Psalm Book and Early Moments in American Printing,” the exhibit will run from June 4, 2015 to January 2, 2016. The LoC press release says the amazing collection of printed papers will:

“…tell the story of early printing in the American colonies, spanning 100 years, as printing evolved from a colonial necessity to the clarion of freedom.”

The centerpiece of the exhibit is two copies of the Bay Psalm Book of 1640. Only 11 copies are known to exist, and the book is both the first English-language book in North America and the first printed book of American poetry. It is also the most expensive printed book ever – having sold at Sotheby’s for $14,165,000 to entrepreneur and philanthropist David Rubenstein in 2013.

You can peruse the Bay Psalm Book online for free (see below), courtesy of the Old South Church in Boston – but nothing tops the ability to see the actual printed work in person this year at the Library of Congress.

Other rare printed items from the colonial period will also be on exhibit:

A Poor Richard’s Almanac by Ben Franklin from the 1740s
Thomas Paine’s Common Sense pamphlet from 1776
The Federalist essays of 1788 from Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay
Poet Phillis Wheatley’s 1773 Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. Wheatley was the first African American published poet and the first published African American woman
An Algonquian Indian Bible from 1663
The first novel ever printed in the colonies: The Power of Sympathy, 1789 by William Hill Brown

For those unable to get to DC, the Library of Congress will also maintain an online version – here. This exhibit truly highlights the role printing played in America’s founding and independence. That influence continues today as print evolves through an ongoing information and technological revolution. Print is communication – it will change, but never be relegated to just a museum exhibit.

Call us at 828.684.4512 for any marketing needs. As a printer, we understand communication and design. Your printer should be able to provide you with the latest information, inspiration, technical advice, and innovative ideas for communicating your message through print, design and typography, signage, apparel, variable data printing and direct mail, integrated marketing and environmentally responsible printing. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

ImageSmith is now partnered with Extreme Awards & Engraving – our in-house partner providing custom engraved trophies and awards for employee recognition programs, sporting events, and promotional needs. With our new sister company, we will be sharing space, resources and expertise in a collaboration designed to further provide you with one place to meet all of your marketing needs… Under One Roof! Visit them online at www.extremeae.com or call direct at 828.684.4538.

Call us at 828.684.4512. ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your print and marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.

January 8, 2014

9 on Design: Websites and Blogs to Inspire You

So many rich, inspirational, informative websites and blogs are now online that help keep us here at ImageSmith up to date. We have many favorites, and want to share a few in this post with the hope you find and bookmark a new resource to fire up your imagination. They are a true mixture, but one common denominator is they always help to provide inspiration and insight for design and marketing ideas.

In no certain order:

inkondapaper.com

“All things PRINT all the time.” Now with that tagline, you know we love this site. The proud creation of Chicago-based Brian Szubinski and Jason Shudy, inkondapaper is full of the latest news on print, design, direct mail, technology and more. A great resource for anyone working in or relying on the creativity and innovation of the print world.

mediabistro.com

With their tagline “the pulse of media”, media bistro is an expansive site hosting many different blogs all serving as an international resource for media professionals. Keep up with news from a variety of fields you may not have time to otherwise be an expert on such as 3D printing, mobile apps, job searches, public relations, advertising, semantic web and broadcast news.

Studiodaas Magazine or www.dnjg.be

Based in Rotterdam, this site with the cute green housefly logo is rich with stories, links, downloads and information about “design, web design, typography, web development, graphic design, photography and more…” Browse around and discover great links to tutorials on innovative typography, print projects, free font downloads. The site is well curated and geared for the progressive designer.

flavorwire.com

Live from New York, Flavorwire is a slick, up-to-the-minute website that features original reporting and critique on global cultural news. Their Twitter profile says that includes: “art, books, music, and pop culture the world over. Highbrow, lowbrow, and everything in between.” Click over on the right to the Design section for great news and inspiration about the field of graphic design.

rebento.com.pt

The blog of graphic designer Visco Duque from Lisbon, Portugal – Rebento never fails to feature innovative, fresh, cutting edge designs, photography and illustrations that are an inspiration. It feels like a world market of design, a great place to browse.

Inspirationhut.com

Modern magazine redesigns, world’s biggest sand artwork, engraved typography, paintings for the blind…. just a sample of the wonderful mixture of current articles on Inspirationhut. This online art and design “magazine” focuses on talent and inspiration, and also offers frequent font, psd, texture and other downloads that designers love to find.

youthedesigner.com

A “graphic design lifestyle blog,” youthedesigner’s focus is the design professional – so expect to find practical inspirational spotlights and interviews, news on competitions, workshops, and technology as well as freebies, contests, print templates, info graphics, and the like.

trüfblog.com

The blog of Trüf creative, an award winning design firm in Santa Monica, CA – “A Creative Studio Obsessed with Designing Better Brands.” Great sense of style and color, this blog always inspires and informs.

messynessychic.com

“Blogging on the offbeat, the unique and the chic” – articles here on fashion, culture and inspiration feel like a great find in neat corner shop. Another great place to browse.

ImageSmith is proud to be a printer in an exciting era of digital communication. Your printer should be able to provide you with the latest information, inspiration, technical advice, and innovative ideas for communicating your message through print, design and typography, signage, apparel, variable data printing and direct mail, integrated marketing and environmental responsible printing. They should also be able to work with you to solve any difficult prepress issues with your files. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

Call us at 828.684.4512. ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your print and marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.

April 13, 2012

Mixing Ink – the Pantone Recipe for Print

Twitter uses a specific blue – not the same as Facebook blue, or Ford blue, or “Big Blue” IBM. Coke always wants the same red, whether its on a T-shirt, paper, plastic, a television screen or a glass bottle. To reproduce color consistently, especially across different media, platforms, techonologies and visual arenas, everyone needs to be communicating in the same language of color, so to speak. The PANTONE® Matching System is that language – an industry standard and means of selecting, communicating, reproducing, matching and controlling colors. For offset, lithographic printing, Pantone created a Color Formula Guide with well over 1000 classified colors that fill the CMYK gamut. From a set of basic inks, each of these colors can be mixed.

For spot color printing, the Pantone Guide contains ink mixing instrusctions for each color, a “recipe” with amounts given both in parts and percentages. If a printer needs a large quantity of ink, or is doing regular printing for clients who use a specific color for their brand, these inks will be purchased premixed. But for smaller quantities, each color in the Pantone Guide can be created with a mixture of 2 or more of 14 standard base colors. They are: Yellow, Yellow 012, Orange 021, Warm Red, Red 032, Rubine Red, Rhodamine Red, Purple, Violet, Blue 072, Reflex Blue, Process Blue, Green, and Black.

In the image above, our printer is mixing PMS 151 Orange for a client’s job. The formula for that exact color is 12 parts of PANTONE Yellow (or 75%) and 4 parts of PATNONE Warm Red (or 25%). For this small amount of ink needed, he weighs each ink amount on a scale and then mixes thoroughly together for the correct color match, which is then tested alongside the PANTONE preprinted swatch for that color to doublecheck the outcome.

Pantone recently unveiled their cloud system of color management, PANTONELive: “a cloud-based color bank.” It is a color management system for companies and brand owners who do marketing over a large variety of media and across a diverse geographical area to ensure everyone is speaking that same color language.

ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.