Screen Printing Versus Direct to Garment: What is the difference?

Screen Printing Screen printing uses a mesh to transfer ink onto the fabric. This means it requires a lot of setting up, making it ideal for printing long runs (e.g. 50 T-shirts). DTG Printing DTG stands for direct-to-garment and is a printing process where ink is applied directly to the fabric. This allows you to print complex designs and more colors without a minimum run length! You could print just 1 T-shirt and not have to pay the setup fees.

Screen Printing Example

Direct to Garment Example

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7 Financial Products That Are a Great Investment

Finance-themed promotional products are a great marketing investment and help increase brand awareness and customer loyalty. These 7 products can be used as financial seminar gifts, banking giveaways, grand opening souvenirs and more!

Piggy Bank

Did you know piggy banks originated back in the Middle Ages? Back in the day, people used “pygg”, a type of clay pot, to store coins. When the English alphabet evolved, the word for these pots became “pigge” and potters started making pig-shaped pots for people to store spare change. Fast forward to today when you can get piggy banks in all shapes and sizes, or even ones with your logo on them! 

Checkbook Cover

Why not make checkbooks a little more stylish? This leather checkbook cover is a great giveaway when customers open a checking account, and it’s something they will use that reminds them of your brand.  

Deposit Bag

These deposit bags are a great way to conveniently store papers and documents so it’s easy to quickly find what you need. There’s plenty of storage for checks, cash, and deposit slips so everything is in one place. You'll be able to bank on a successful promotional campaign when you give these to your customers.

Money Clip

Here's a promotional product that is right on the money! This elegant cash holder is the perfect promotional gift for financial institution giveaways or corporate events. Plus, adding your logo to the front of the clip gives your company even more visibility. 

Calculator

This calculator is sure to be a great addition to your next marketing campaign. Its small hand-held size makes it easy to do interest and APY calculations on the go. Calculators are also office essentials, so your customers will want to keep them on their desks all year long.

Gold Bar Paperweight

Dazzle your customers with this gold bar paperweight that helps them keep all their documents and statements organized. It’s also an attention-grabbing desk accessory that is worth its weight in gold. Your customers will be excited to show this gift off to their family and friends.

Dollar Sign Stress Reliever

Stress relievers are a great way to show your customers that their stress will melt away when they switch to your company. A dollar-shaped stress reliever will help your brand stand out from the crowd and give you a step up on the competition. 

We would love to help you customize any of these promotional products and thousands more. Contact us today to get started!

NOBODY does printing better than the Print Guru!

Call 833-464-8781 today about your project!

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How to Gain Inspiration in 5 Minutes

People demand a lot of creativity from professionals these days. We live in the era of media overload, where viral video marketing and colorful infographics have become accepted means of engaging an audience. As they should, that's what sets you apart from the competition. In fact, more video content is uploaded to the web in one single month than TV has created in three decades! How is that for an information flood?

Reaching that refreshing glimpse of inspiration is not as difficult as it may seem. At times you don’t need more than 5 minutes to get in the mood. Of course, when you are down on your luck and can’t get out of your discouraged head, it may take a few guiding steps to get you into the right mindset. Before diving into the actual practice, take the time to prepare your personal inspiration zone.

Prepare Your Inspiration Zone

Your Inspiration Zone is both a physical and emotional state where you know you can work proactively. It varies from person to person but basically serves as a safe place for you to tap into your creative reserves. Without further ado - see how easy it is to pick up on your prolific habits!

Learn your creative patterns

Take the time to test and learn what helps you get engaged. Artists, for instance, like working with natural art; some graphic designers prefer using a Mac versus a PC; some people tend to listen to classical music when trying to focus. Ask yourself what keeps you focused and what aids in your productivity.

Take the time to research

As humans, we have evolved to continuously influence and bounce credos off one another. Some have perfected this art by surrounding themselves with information that keeps their gears turning, even if one’s own fuel had run out. Take some time to do some research on authors you align with, publications that spark your imagination, and forms of information that entice you.

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Inspiration can come from anywhere – even through marketing emails! Having all these elements on hand can set you up for a very productive workday, and even more – a very productive life.

5 Minute Inspiration Zone

Having gathered all the necessary components to easily achieve these fleeting moments of stirring awakening, you have entered the 5 Minute Inspiration Zone. This is where you want to be and, ultimately, stay for your creatively demanding needs.

Set the scene

Dim the lights, pop open the bookmarks and scroll through the newsletters to point your brainpower in the right direction. But don’t stop there - heat up your favorite drink, put on some snazzy tunes and settle into your space. Sometimes preparation is the most important step to creation.

Uncover the "Why"

Attack each project with an intent of purpose attached to its name. Sometimes the central idea behind our agenda gets lost in the various stages of preparation, leaving behind a lot of ambiguity on our plate. Retrace your footsteps back to the core of your task and remember what you’re trying to achieve and why.

Let go of fear

One word of advice on this matter – let go. Every great medium of work was at one point both nerve-wracking and thrilling, and it is up to us to choose which form to give in to. In this case, a mantra can be used to shed any sliver of doubt in your mind.

Create for 5 Minutes

For the next five minutes let yourself create whatever you feel like, free of guidance and expectations. While keeping busy, you may actually find yourself being struck by an idea that evolves into your next piece.

On the occasion that your 5 minutes of creative exploration are up and you still haven’t reached any magical revelation - don’t worry. Our brains are experts at coming up with solutions to problems we may not even be aware of! And when you feel like all the worthwhile content had already been taken up by bright minds before you, take a deep breath and be patient with yourself. Surely, somewhere along the process, a light bulb will go off and you will be immersed in the wonderful world of imaginative fulfillment.

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8 Graphic Design Mistakes to Avoid

From social media graphics and website layouts to creating a cohesive grouping of promotional products, there are plenty of opportunities to flex your creative muscles and grow your business at the same time. Whether you’re trying to create a product mockup, designing a new logo, or putting together some print marketing for a new campaign for the first time, creating new artwork doesn’t have to be scary! We’ve put together some of the most common graphic design mistakes and how you can avoid them.

1. Too Many Fonts

Also, keep in mind the kerning of your fonts, this means the spacing between the letters, which makes a big difference in the finished product of your artwork. Adjusting the space between letters can make the words more legible and help the overall appearance of the words.

2. Using Stock Images

Stock images can be a helpful and affordable solution when you’re working on a project that requires specific images. However, using too many stock photos can make your project look cheap or unprofessional. Many common stock photos become used over and over again which makes it a dead giveaway when you put them in your marketing piece. Also, make sure you are properly purchasing the photos you do end up using to avoid sending out photos with a watermark or ones that are low resolution.

3. Not Proofreading 

Make sure you are always checking over the spelling and grammar before sending a piece to print or hitting send on an email. While a misused comma or other punctuation marks may not seem like a major problem, there are plenty of people out there that will notice common issues like that, and ignore the rest of the project. For example, if you are distributing leaflets as part of your ad campaign, and if the leaflet design has many spelling mistakes in the text, it will backfire. Customers may not take those mistakes kindly, and simply deem your business as unprofessional due to tiny spelling mistakes.

What can you do to avoid this problem? It might seem unlikely that you would miss an obvious error, however it can be very easy to overlook a typo even through multiple rounds of edits. So, get a second pair of eyes on your work; have your coworkers look through your copy and hopefully they will catch any proofreading errors you might have missed the first time!

4. Choosing the Wrong Colors

Similar to using too many fonts, choosing too many colors or choosing the wrong colors can also make a design ineffective. It can be distracting to use too many bold colors in one piece. In the example above, the bright colors on the right side make the logo appear less clear and harder to read than the logo on the left that uses contrasting colors. So when creating new branding for your company or a new artwork, it’s important to start by creating a color palette. Each color palette you create should include both primary colors and secondary colors. Test your fonts along with these colors to make sure that text is legible whether standing alone or sitting on top of other elements.

5. Using Incorrect Hierarchy

In graphic design, hierarchy is how a piece is organized so the audience knows which elements are the most important and how their eyes should move over the piece. When looking at the pieces above, the flow of the flyer on the left is easy for the eye to navigate and ensures your audience can find the most important information right away. While the flyer on the right has the eye jumping around looking for the important information. Hierarchy is the top design technique that ranks the importance of your information. Whenever you’re creating a new design there is typically one general message you want to communicate. Whether you’re communicating a sale, upcoming event, or new blog post, how you create hierarchy in your design will dictate what your audience takes away from your design. Hierarchy doesn’t just have to be font size or placement, you can also create effective hierarchy through colors, graphic elements, or the weight of the fonts you use.

6. Designing for the Wrong Medium

The first decision you should make when you are starting on artwork is where it will be appearing. Whether it will be used on social media, on your website, or printed in a magazine can make a big difference in how you should be creating your design. For example, if your design will be printed, you will need to use CMYK color mode which stands for cyan, magenta, yellow, and key (black) which is used for four-color process printing. If it is going to appear on a digital screen (tv, computer, phone, or tablet) it should be created in RGB, which stands for red, green, and blue – the colors of light screens use to display a range of colors. If you created a design in one format and printed or published it in the other it would look completely different because the colors wouldn’t translate!

7. Saving in the Wrong Format

When choosing a file format for your design image, think about whether or not the image needs to be in raster or vector format. Raster images are made up of pixels while vectors are made up of geometric lines and curves, which means they can be scaled to any size while keeping their shape. You may also hear vector files referred to as AI files because vector artwork is typically created in Adobe Illustrator.  If you are worried about your design getting pixelated, a good rule of thumb is to make your design bigger than it needs to be. You can always reduce resolution, but you can never increase it. Also, consider if the design will be printed or displayed online; all of these things will make it easier to choose the perfect way to save work.

The three most common file types for web-based images are .jpeg, .png, and .gif. Here’s a rundown of what makes each one of them different.

JPEG – JPEG images are ideal for files with gradients and allow for a smaller file size through compression PNG – PNG images are lossless, so they do not lose quality during editing, support transparency, and tend to be larger than a JPEG GIF – GIF images can maintain a low file size while being able to support animation

A few other common file types like .pdf, .psd, and .ai, refer to where the specific file was created.

PDF  – Incorporates all the elements of a printed document as an image that you can view, print, or send to someone else PSD – Refers to a file created in Adobe Photoshop AI – Refers to a file created in Adobe Illustrator

8. Not Creating a Versatile Design 

The best graphics are evergreen and multi-purpose! If you’re creating a logo, think about how it will look on promotional products, how it will look in a 1 color or full color, and how it can be simplified to ensure you’re able to use specific design processes with your logo. This will help establish your brand consistency and save you time and money from having to redesign artwork for new projects down the road.

Blog Article Courtesy of SAGE

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The Top 4 Fashion Trends for Summer 2019 You Need to Know

Fashion is like a boomerang: trends and styles always come back around. This is undoubtedly the case for the summer 2019 lookbook, from old-time grungy favorites to sporty-turned-chic statement pieces. Regardless of your opinion of high-fashion, what goes on the runway always trickles down to the mainstream.

We’ve sorted through the popular SS19 runway apparel and assembled the top four fashion trends for summer 2019 that your business should keep in mind:

1. Tie-Dye

Tie-dye made a comeback as a fashion favorite last year, and the psychedelic style is at the forefront of this summer’s trends—from blazers to maxi dresses to tees. Though now the resurgence of this hippie wardrobe staple displays a modern update. Luxury labels were seenmixing tie-dye and floral, experimenting with kaleidoscope patterns and trying more subtle design approaches across the runway. Everyone from your old art teacher to Insta-famous celebs will be rockin’ it soon.

On-Trend Options:

The Contrast Cyclone T-Shirt can be paired with a blazer for a polished athleisure look or screen printed with a dope design and worn to a festival.

Add decorative floral embroidery to the Cyclone Vat-Dyed Pinwheel Long Sleeve T-Shirt for a unique, high street spin or sell as-is to keep it simple. To add personality, your customers can easily crop the shirt giving it an Off-White vibe.

2. Sun-Kissed Hues

Pantone announced “Living Coral” as the 2019 color of the year, so it’s no surprise the catwalks graced us with gorgeous arrays of sun-kissed hues for the SS19 season. If the high street colors are any indication of what’s ahead, this summer is going to be a hot one. The popular colors range from coral to burnt oranges to warm reds.

On-Trend Options:

Racerbacks are perfect for warm weather fashion, but when paired with the Pantone color of the year, the tanks are a match made in heaven. The Women’s Flowy Racerback Tank is form-flattering and can be worn to the gym or dressed up for a night out.

The Unisex Sueded Tee in a sunshine hue with a poly-cotton blend is perfect for vintage sublimation graphic tees that are just as cool as they are comfy.

3. Bucket Hats

Bucket hats—a ‘90s Justin Timberlake staple—are a “must-have” accessory this summer thanks to high-fashion’s obsession with elevating the look. The trend was seen in multiple shapes and colors on catwalks across the world, reaffirming it’s here to stay. Offering both functionality and edge, bucket hats are perfect for weekend outings and outdoor adventures. We’d keep your shelves stocked with this accessory.

On-Trend Options:

From suiting to streetwear, the Ultralight Booney with utility strings provides just the right amount of casual fashion edge.

The Bucket Cap is a classic for both men and women. It can be worn with khaki pants and a blazer or overalls for an on-trend vibe.

4. Bike and Board Shorts

It seems fashion has taken a liking to the surfing and cycling lifestyles. From the Kardashian-Jenner clan favorite to a more sensible styling, both bike shorts and board shorts are next season’s apparel of choice.

On-Trend Options:

While the Women’s Fitted Shorts are a little shorter than traditional bike shorts, they still fit the style. These shorts can be layered under oversized t-shirts or suit jackets.

Easily go from work to play by pairing the Diamond Dobby Board Shorts with a preppy button-up.  

- Courtesy of S&S Activewear

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Print Managers do it better!

Ok, so now that I have your attention with the headline, print managers do it better! And what do they do better? They work to give their customer quality, printed marketing material at a good price. But what is a print manager? First we must look at the differences in the printing world.

On one side we have print shops. These shops have their own equipment and outsource very little. Typically they sell only to the public and extremely little to resellers. Because they use their own equipment and don't really rely on other print shops to help them, they are limited on what they provide customers and overhead is higher, which in turn...higher print costs.

Second is a trade printer. They only sell to brokers or print shops, not to the public. They have much lower pricing than a local print shop because they create specific print programs that fit their equipment and production capabilities. They cannot do custom and specialized printing, just what their capabilities provide.

Lastly is a print manager. Their situation is very unique because of several reasons. First, they normally don't have any equipment, which decreases their overhead and thus....the cost of printing to the consumer! They can work with several printers as they want, maximizing the capabilies available to the client. But their greatest strength is their bargaining power! Print managers are the 800 pound gorilla in the print room, helping their clients get the best printing cost for the project. While a typical customer may go down to the local print shop to get a quote, print brokers levy the power of several printers, each trying to compete for your project! On most projects, a print broker will save you a lot of money!

Print Guru Marketing is proud to be a print manager for their clients. Are you ready to save money?

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Direct Mail is far from dead!

Found this article I thought illustrated perfectly that direct mail is far from dead!

THE DEMISE OF DIRECT MAIL – STRICTLY A GRAND ILLUSION“The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” – Mark Twain

Mark Twain was addressing his critics who were spreading rumors that he had passed away. In fact, Twain was very much alive and his popularity with readers was peaking.

Twain also could have been talking about direct mail marketing, that tried-and-true form of advertising that’s been around for over 100 years and still going strong.

The fact is direct mail is hardly dead. It is still being used aggressively and regularly by all kinds of savvy marketers. It’s a critical part of their overall marketing mix, especially when it comes to prospecting for new customers.

It’s been called many things, including junk mail. But in reality the new junk mail is actually all the messages you receive in your digital mailbox every day.

How many emails do you delete without even bothering to open? Maybe half of them, probably a whole lot more. It’s not unusual for someone to delete as much as 90% of emails received without ever opening them. The average person now receives 20, 30 or more emails each day soliciting everything from weight loss to travel deals, from miracle drugs to the latest ramblings of so-called experts. Yes, email marketing is an extremely effective medium for communicating and selling customers. And it is certainly more convenient and much less expensive when compared to direct mail. However, if you’re looking for new customers, direct mail wins hands down. On the back-end, direct mail is cheaper when figuring out the cost-per-sale.

When it comes to crafting a multimedia campaign, your best bet is to use a combination of different messaging platforms which could include email, direct mail, free standing inserts, print ads and more.

Let’s take a look at how the old way of doing things (direct mail) stacks up favorably when compared to the relatively new kid on the block (email):

Ten advantages of direct mail versus email marketing:

1. Direct mail is more reliable, trustworthy – According to an Epsilon study, 50% of consumers prefer direct mail to email, 67% think direct mail is more personal, 70% preferred direct mail to email when it comes to unsolicited information from unfamiliar companies and 25% perceived direct mail offers to be more trustworthy than email. 

2. Direct mail can be three-dimensional, unique – You can touch and feel it, and in some cases like scratch ‘n’ sniff even smell it. It has texture, visual impact, a sense of realism and validity. Email is strictly one-dimensional, a message appearing on your computer or smart phone screen. There is little differentiation from one email to another. 

3. Direct mail projects a personality – The creative execution options are virtually unlimited, from different shapes and sizes to snap packs to scratch and reveal to windows, die cuts and intricate folds. Direct mail enters a home through a mailbox. Emails can be released into never, never land with a simple click of a button. 

4. Direct mail has longevity – A direct mail package can remain on a coffee table or desk for days, even weeks for future reference. When it comes to emails they are very disposable, they are rarely kept or referred back to. Emails tend to be a one-time, extremely brief, quick shot at gaining the attention of a prospect. 

5. Direct mail has a higher perceived value – When it comes to email prospecting campaigns, 95%+ of all emails are never opened.

6. Direct mail will at least capture a glance. Prospects may not read every word, but there is a level of brand and offer awareness that doesn’t exist with emails. 

7. Direct mail has a much higher delivery rate – About 95% compared to less than 50% for most email lists. Plus more and more ISPs like Yahoo, AOL and gmail are taking steps to block unsolicited emails, and this trend is expected to continue. 

8. Direct mail provides more details vs. short email content – The life span of an email is literally seconds. A direct mail package can actually hold the attention of a prospect for a much longer period of time, especially if there is an interest factor. 

9. There’s less competition in the mailbox compared to an email inbox – Since more and more marketers are choosing to flood email in boxes, the competition in the mailbox has been reduced. A direct mail package has a much better chance of being, opened, read and retained compared to an email message. People are more receptive to direct mail – When it comes to prospecting for new customers, direct mail will consistently beat email, usually by a significant margin. According to a DMA (Direct Marketing Association) study, direct mail is 10-30 times more effective than email when it comes to generating new customers. 

10. Direct mail can rely on emotion to illicit a response vs. the cold, hard facts of an email – An emotional tug can help marketers sell products and services. It’s much easier to touch upon someone’s feelings with direct mail when compared to the one-dimensional, fact-based content of most email campaigns.

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