You absolutely should be!

Following a day of working online, people are looking for physical distractions. They’re checking the mail, reading again, getting outside – and, of course, shopping.

If you’re debating, consider this – people are home and people like receiving mail…(not bills ;)…so now’s the time to get their attention offline with your marketing pieces!

Connect with us today. We’ll help to get your products into your customers hands. 

Some statistics to keep in mind (from Newswire and Statistics Canada): 

• In 2020, a study showed that 95 percent of consumers believe supporting small business is key to keeping our economy healthy. If you are a small, local business, let your neighborhood know.
• In 2020, online e-commerce DOUBLED in Canada. If you’ve developed a new website or way of purchasing your products online, you should be telling as many potential customers as possible.

Happy Canada Day from all of us at Direction Printing!

If you are entertaining, here is a dynamite veggie dip recipe:

“Sure to Please Dip”

3/4 tub sour cream (14%)

Juice of 2 limes

1 jalapeno (or 2 if you want some extra kick!)

1 avocado

1 bunch of green onions

1 large clove of garlic

1/3 of a bunch of fresh cilantro

and ½ tsp salt

Throw it all in the bender and its done. Serve with cut veggies and enjoy!

Recommended veggies for dipping: Cucumber/ Snap peas/ Celery/ Carrots/ Kohlrabi/ Peppers etc.

We hope everyone has a great and safe Canada Day weekend!

Welcome to another Printing 101 blog entry - Today we're going to talk about Flyers vs Brochures vs Booklets and their differences….

A Flyer is a single sheet of paper (that doesn’t actually fly ;) or will it?), typically sized to 8.5x11 (can vary slightly larger/smaller) and can be printed on one or both sides. Flyers are best for short term use or quick messages like advertising a particular sale, event upcoming etc. They are most often produced on text weights as that helps to keep the budget in check.

Brochures on the other hand are printed on both sides and can be folded in a variety of ways, as shown below. Oh, how I love a good illustration!  Generally, brochures are printed with the intention of being well handled and kept around, so they are best printed on a more durable paper with a protective coating like AQ.  What’s AQ you’re wondering? An abbreviation for aqueous, meaning a water-based coating that helps to prevent finger printing, seal in the ink and speeds up the dry time. AQ ensures your marketing materials get out on time, increases the longevity and look super sharp! 

Some cool folds to target your audiences…

And last but not least what’s a booklet?!…  booklets are bound containing multiple sheets … an easy rule… if your job doesn’t require binding it’s not considered a booklet to us. They are typically a main marketing tool that’s printed with AQ, using a combination of text and cover weights.... a show piece to be appreciated.

Booklets can be bound using a variety of methods, but most commonly by the use of staples (sometimes referred to as saddle stitched or corner stapling), wire-o binding, plastic coil binding, loop binding or using glues ie perfect binding. There’s a lot to say about booklets....and of course more fun illustrations to add in, so this topic needs to be continued, stay tuned …..

To summarize:

Flyers - a flat sheet of paper, printed on one side or two.

Brochures - flat sheet of paper, double sided and folded… there are many folds to consider.

Booklets - multiple sheets bound together, two sided… many binding styles available.

:)

Cheers!~

Welcome to our Printing 101 series – these blog entries will be geared to discussing print terms, hacks, processes and design tips.

So “spine creep”, what is it? Some kind of horrible disease you wouldn’t want to get?

No, spine creep (or page creep) is where a saddle stitched project’s centre-most pages stick out further along the trim edge. So, if you have a 16-page saddle stitched document on an 80lb text stock, nothing to really worry about. But if you have a project with heavy stock or something more than 24-pages, your centre-most pages will stick out further than the cover and when the final trim is done, they will be short trimmed. You will lose some information within your layout on those centre- most pages unless you adjust your margins to account for this.

Here is a visual:

Frustrating phenomena that can sometimes be solved in your layout program (or sometimes by prepress). General rule of thumb is if you have a lot of pages and you are choosing saddle stitching it’s best to keep the creep in mind and keep page numbers or other content that may be near the trim clear of that edge.