Content creation

All about the difference…

7 January 2024 Stuart Nimmo

Anyone with any common sense knows it’s not what you do, but how you do it. With a wide variety of print service providers out there, some purely online shifting products without any relationship. To us print is an art form when done well, it adds value, understanding what you want to achieve is at the heart of how we do it. So distinguishing what matters and why, makes a real difference to the result. With over 70 years of combined experience within HAD-Print, the small differences are what make the difference, so here are a few examples.

What makes us different?
“More than box shifters” at the very heart of what we do – is understanding your needs as our customer. Easy words, but here’s one example.
It’s not just understanding you, but the needs of your end users. The work we’ve done with Simon Ferris at Flat Stan First Aid is about maximising the learning of the children partaking in the programme and after the learning. We’ve helped Simon to evolve his resources into something more dynamic which is engaging on many levels. Simon doesn’t just use us for the print, but as a sounding board to help his develop ideas – it is a pleasure to be valued in this way.

What makes us different?
“More than box shifters” at the very heart of what we do – is understanding your needs as our customer. Easy words, but here’s another example.
When you meet a business person regularly you get to understand them and their business. Ben at Phoenix Heating and Plumbing was one of these customers. Seeing, talking, understanding, and knowing his “pain points” really helped auto meet his aspirations of where he wanted to take his business. Introducing a brand identity for Phoenix Heating and Plumbing, was probably the first significant thing we did, we amazed Ben when after a few words, we were able to hit the brief on the nose for him. Workwear for his team provided the opportunity to raise the level and put pride in the business. We’ve since helped get marketing collateral to hit the mark as well. Quick response due to circumstances, favours pulled from some of our contacts, and leaflets with the right professional high-end images he required to help them pitch for the work they knew they could achieve.

What makes us different?
“More than box shifters” at the very heart of what we do – is understanding your needs as our customer. Easy words, but here’s another example.
A very recent example. And a very sweet one at that. Mrs H, whose husband had recently passed, wished to ensure his legacy was a positive one. He had extensively researched the mills in 2 local valleys and the documents whilst useable, they were in no format to be shared or passed on. We took the documents, and a wallet of photos, and worked our way through and artwork up the book professionally, after a round of proofreading, the 2 volumes (books) were printed on a limited edition basis, enough for the family, placing in local libraries and history centres.

What makes us different?
“More than box shifters” at the very heart of what we do – is understanding your needs as our customer. Easy words, but here’s another example.
Over the last 2 years, we’ve produced all sorts of card decks. A lovely item to work on, as they are usually so diverse in content. At the end of last year, we had a referral enquiry which said… “Can you…” well, the answer is yes, as ever. It was a different size, a different number of cards. Gareth had in his mind’s eye exactly what he wanted. Getting to know, and understand is the usual key to creating a specification which works. It was nice that it was 2 decks of the same specification, different designs running in parallel, which makes things easier in production. Gareth in asking the right questions to us, enabled us to tweak and develop what he was looking for from an existing reference point. Here’s why it works with us, we are truly bespoke, unlike your online portal funnel web-based printers, we use, knowledge, and experience to devise the right solution for you.

Need your print to work smarter for you? Why not start a conversation with us?

Cutting corners doesn’t pay…

18 April 2021 Stuart Nimmo

I know I’ve written blogs around the topics of design, useful tips and quality of reproduction before. But this seems to raise its head frequently and needless to say, things don’t change. The adage of what goes in is what comes out. Whether it be mail merge data, which hasn’t been prepared correctly, or the consistency is random; flyers that are produced without any thought to the target audience or how they will be engaged with are just a few of the many challenges to great results. The small nuances are the finer detail which is all part of what we do. Some might say it’s the 80/20 rule, but of course, it’s the last 20% that makes the difference.

So here are a few thoughts regardless of what your project is…

Planning

Failing to plan is planning to fail as the adage goes. Print is a pivotal point in a marketing cycle, being scattergun with it doesn’t help you. Having a production plan, including textual copy reviews, branding coherence, ensuring imagery is spot on, now’t worse than text saying one thing and your imagery speaking the opposite.

Know your audience

Absolutely critical, mapping this out will provide you with the key approaches to ensuring you successfully engage your decision-makers. This pen portrait will ensure you know who you are “talking to”

Use your budget wisely

This is where your 80/20 rule shows the most. Cutting corners can do more damage than the difference in the saving. Good design artwork doesn’t have to cost the earth. Good printers have experienced designers in-house. If part of something more critical, a graphic designer will add more flair to a larger project. Rule of thumb, design/artwork studio time within a print house will be £25-£35 p/hr whereas creative designers will be £40-£75 p/hr. Getting your design/artwork right will drive the results, so this is money well spent.

Ensure great reproduction

When a printer has been involved with a job from the start, if they have a good background with traditional “repro” as it was called, they will optimise images to ensure great reproduction. Or as one client called it “Sows Ear into Silk Purse”. See the blog on the Lost Art o f Repro

Print has never been as affordable

True fact, print comparatively is more affordable than it was 10-20 years ago. So don’t try haggling, you just rub the printer up the wrong way. The advent of digital print has reduced the cost of entry. However, set up fees; disk/file handling charges still apply, as it still requires someone to get your file ready for print. The downside of short-run print (small quantities) is that finishing set up costs for lamination, foiling, creasing, folding and other bindery work.

Working with a good print provider will help you to control your project costs, they will suggest ways to ensure you can measure the performance of your printed item. Printers are real-world people, with significant experience of working across media to ensure integration. Yes, you can ship your file to a big internet shed, have it squirted through a machine, and we know the chances of total satisfaction won’t be as high, a local printer does a lot more than you probably realise, above all they are human, and love engaging with people like you.

Proofing perfection – get it right first time.

27 February 2021 Stuart Nimmo

Once upon a time (well that sounds like a children’s story), the process of “proofing” was a critical process of producing an item for print. We are in changing times, and every penny counts in a budget, so a costly mistake can be the last thing you need. In a day and age, where online content is always updated and evolves, sloppiness creeps in. A piece of printed collateral will have a longer life span than a piece of digital content.

It may seem like there is never time to proof something thoroughly the first time, but when it is not done, you may end up making time to do the entire job a second time. Just what are some of the things that should be checked during the proofing process? Here is a list to perfect your proofing strategy:

Proof the textual content.

The first place to start is the text. Review all text for spelling and grammatical correctness, check punctuation, and most importantly, the accuracy of the content. One of my early bosses encouraged us to read the text backwards, so read it properly, then go to the end of the paragraph and check every word. If you have written the text and revised it copiously, get a second pair of eyes to be your critical friend and read it. Good editors/copywriters don’t charge too much for this service.

Check the image quality.

Image quality expectations change vastly with different types, colour is a critical item as well. What might view ok on your computer screen, could reproduce differently in print. An experienced pre-press technician or digital printer will guide you through ensure modest colour management. They will ensure calibration from screen to print and different paper stocks. Worth noting that a screen uses subtractive colour (RGB) and we print using an additive process (CMYK) so colours will vary. For high-level image quality jobs, it may be wise to have physical proof rather than just an on-screen proof, as digital printers, we can proof your job on the paper stock. Or provide benchmarking for colour with standardized materials.

Confirm the overall look and feel.

Pages can look very different on screen to when they are printed. Look over the typography, and the quality of reproduction, ensure you are happy with the detail. Ensure placement of images, illustrations and text. Don’t forget to check hyphenation and line arrangement (as us about Widows and Orphans), page format, and bleeds.

Whilst the print process has dramatically reduced in its timelines, the proofing process is something which you cannot afford to reduce. It is the difference between making a modest impression or an excellent impression with your reader.