In the entire print industry, and in the retail industry specifically, there is perhaps no type of signs as important as those found in the storefront. The look of a business’s storefront signage is the look they are giving themselves, the way they are visually representing their company. A business’s storefront signage is how its existing customers locate a store, and how its first-time viewers develop their impressions of that entire business.

This is inherently obvious, but I think it’s worth re-emphasizing. Storefront signage can be taken for granted at times, possibly because it’s out of sight and out of mind. Any business owner (and not just in retail) has a million other things to worry about before they address the condition of their storefront signage or think about the shape it’s in or what message it is sending. It is important to remember that storefront signage is the impression a business is sending both to existing customers and first-time viewers.

This blog post serves only as a fresh and friendly reminder – a reminder to try thinking in a new way about the condition and message your storefront signage is sending. Ask someone objective to take a look and tell you what impression they get. Remember, you’ve seen it a thousand times, so you are utterly used to it. Try to see your storefront signage in a new, fresh way, and you might discover something worth acting upon!
Just in case you notice something that needs changing, or you’d like to send a slightly different message with your storefront signage, our partner site Print Ship Now offers a bunch of really cool storefront signage items, from banners, blockout banners, mesh banners, to high-quality backlit signage, business sticker and decals, and more! It’s a great source for high-quality storefront materials.
Either way, remember to always be thinking about the message your storefront signage is sending, and to look at things like that in a completely fresh way from time to time. It might just end up making all the difference!
To leave on a lighthearted note, (as we will often do) here are some pics of a few businesses who definitely did NOT look objectively at their storefront signage. No matter what your storefront signage situation is, it’s still fun to ask yourself, “What were they thinking?” Till next time!

Creating a template in PrintFX Design Studio from PhotoShop from PrintFX

This has been 2 years in the making but it’s time to let the cat out of the bag. I couldn’t be more excited.  Are you ready,  here it is!  We’re launching the closed beta for online PrintShops.  This mean anyone in the US can create their very own PrintShop for less than $100 per year for the basic module.  More advanced modules will be coming out early 2010, but you can upgrade as we release each module.

Now, if you’re new to PrintFX than you might be asking what does this entail and why would it benefit me.  Each PrintShop will have the ability to customize the look, feel, and content of your page along with changing of pricing for each of our great products.  In a nutshell, for less than a hundred bucks you can have a full customizable store whether you’re wanting to use it to sell t-shirts, or photography canvas for your clients, plus much much more!

Who will be included in the closed beta:

Due to the increasing beta request we will be unable to include every request in the beta program.  Please submit an email to the address below for consideration.  We are looking for companies and individuals that are outgoing and on the cutting edge in the respected field.  Within your submitted please provide contact information including name, phone number, and intention of use for the PrintShop.  Schools and non-profits are encouraged to apply.

contact me!

I’ve got a little secret.
The answer to the question that is whispered between your marketing department and your store design department:
“Signage shouldn’t be in taken out of my budget should it?”
Yes, it should. Here’s why.

Signage is the first and last thing your customers see when they come and leave your store.
There are 3 major reason marketers overlook signage in marketing.

1)

It all comes down to ROI and measurably. Keep in mind CMOs have to answer to someone. Their strategic focus is on more traditional broad-based media, so they like to stay with what they know and what they can track.  Signage, is NOT on the top of the list. I would be surprised if it’s even on there list.

2)

Marketers believe you can’t drive conversions or sales with signage.  What they don’t know is you don’t have to.  When people take the time to come into you store, you already have a captive audience that wants to buy something from you. For whatever reason, they’re there!  So, you have won half the battle. Now capitalize on the small victory of getting the consumer into your store.  This is very prevalent with smaller retail shop.  They usually believe they can’t make their storefront look like the larger retailers when in fact it cost less than any other marketing they will do.  The image of your store is what makes the difference of you retiring a millionaire or filing bankrupt.  Sign Post Publication stated in it’s 2nd Qty magazine that “signage costs about 10% that of broad-based media such as TV, newspapers, and radio, which is usually a one-time investment…”. Broad-based media also falls on deaf ears about 90% of the time. Capitalize on your existing consumers and continue to draw on traffic in/around your store with signage.

3)

Marketers are afraid they will lose control of how and where their ads are placed and indirectly lose their marketing budget. When in fact they will be praised for the increase of sales and the brand recognition by their colleagues. Here’s a little study posted by the SBA.

If your signage is generating 25% more traffic, conversions, and sales than board-based advertising, shouldn’t your signage budget increase? The whole advertising industry is in a flux right now. The golden years of having one agency do it all just doesn’t work anymore and never will again.  There are so many new agencies that pick one part of advertising and become experts in it. The same is true in the sign industry.  Indirectly, all sign companies should consider themselves as a agency for their client and stop trying to just sell signs.  When you stack the numbers up to other medias, the sign industry is one of the strongest. It’s also one of the least understood.  PrintFX can be that to every company! Big or small, we can help you create and execute the right signage marketing campaign you need.  Check out our sites – www.printshipnow.com and Cheaprint.net.

Remember – Print to Inspire…..Inspire to Create!

Now I am not an expert designer. To be honest, I hardly ever do any design outside of motion graphics like After Effects and Premier Pro – my true passion.  However, I do know some basic print standards that everyone should know.  Now this isn’t directed toward any specific industry but we will cover a few, Offset Printing, Grand Format Digital Printing, and Screen Printing.   These basic standards are not the defacto rules, but will help you in your design whether you’re using our PrintFX module or a full blown design software.

First and foremost you have to know the media you’re designing for. If you’re designing for a web site, then the design will be totally different than if it’s for grand format.  Not only the resolution for your images, logos, and any other raster but your design itself, check out the 7 word rule post.

Which bring me to another point: what is considered a raster graphic .  Well, let’s see what the all knowing Wikipedia says aboutraster graphics. In my terms, a raster graphic is image with pixels – squares of color that determine the image.  The important thing you have to remember is the resolution of the graphic, image, logo is going to determine whether those pixels show.

For example, images made for the web need to be at 72 dots per inch (dpi).  This mean the image has 72 square blocks with color per inch.  Check out the zoomed in illustration at the top of the page.  When designing for offset printing you need your images at 300 dpi for good resolution. A lower resolution image will leave visible pixellization within the graphics.  First impressions are the key, and low resolution is almost as bad as typos.  In today’s age people notice when something’s crap, especially when it comes to potential clients.

One more side note: when working with logos, almost all logos should be vector.  I have added a link, cause that another post in its self.  The great thing about vector graphics is that because the image is created using points and a lot of geometry, you can scale them up and down limitless.

In the proverbial nut shell, this following is a basic outline for each print industry.  But remember you need to know the size of the graphic that being printed. The rest of this can change, it’s not a set of rules, but a guide.

Offset printing-

300 dpi at full size for offset graphics.  If you are creating a business card or a brochure look for 2 to 5 mb picture.  This is pretty straight forward, and for what I tell doesn’t change very much in the offset print industry.

Digital printing-

100 dpi at full size will be good, but this is one of those industry that’s a little fragmented.  You really have to be in the industry to understand why, but think of it like this: When you look at a medium image inside of a store (something around 3 foot by 5 foot), you’re viewing from a couple of feet away.  When you creating a billboard that 14 foot by 48 foot, then you’re viewing it from hundreds of feet away.  Therefore, the resolution for that graphics can be created at 50 dpi or even 35 dpi.  This is because your eyes can’t spot the pixels, and really is industry standard.  So know what your creating.

This is one of the reasons we have created the Print-Fx module. We help you determine the print resolution for our digital and screen printed products.  How? well that’s a lot of math and you would fall asleep, trust me, I do in development meetings all the time when our brainy guys start explaining it.  What you need to know when using the PrintFx module and uploading images and files we have built in a image resolution detector that determines if the image is high enough resolution for that specific print.   Keep in mind if you’re creating something big look for big photo.

Print to Inspire…..Inspire to Create!

Wow, that’s all I can say is wow…..after 10 years in the business, WOW!  I’ve never heard of a company, especially a very public sports company misspelling the name of there brand.  If you have been on the other side of the universe for the past few days and didn’t hear the Washington National Baseball team or should I say “Washington Natinals” misspell the jerseys on some of there players.  Now, I don’t want to take this overboard, I’m sure it was an honest mistake and the company that made the jerseys probably don’t have a butt left after that chewing, so let take it easy on them.  At the same time, this gives me a great example to share with you about checking  your work before sending it  to your clients or if you’re creating it for own company, then it’s even more important.  Keep in mind first impression is the key in your branding.  Therefore, if you give a horrible impression of your brand with poor color correction, lack of creative, and misspelled words then don’t even open the door, you can cripple your image before start building a relationship with them.

Don’t get me wrong I make mistakes, for example!  To say I am a good writer would be a big stretch, yeah Chris Hopper, don’t laugh too load!  (Chis is our Interactive Director for PrintFX and occasionally edits my posts)  So, a few years ago I was pitching a advertising medium to a new shareholder for my advertising company.  The ink on the deal was still wet, and I was submitting a quarterly report within the report I added a cover letter.  Well, I usually write letters by just getting my thoughts down on paper then going back and proofing and editing it….which I guess most people do.  Or I might be wierd, what ever the case.  Well, it was late at night and I was trying to make FedEx, so i just saved it and printed the final draft or I thought, not knowing that I printed the unedited version with misspelled words, it looked like a 13 year old wrote it.  Yeah, i mailed it.  A month goes by and I get this call from that same shareholder.  He makes a crack at my expense, which it take with a grain of salt, but at the same time I could hear in his voice the concern.  “Did I make a mistake partnering with this guy.”  So, what could I have done, either way if I explained the situation then I would look bad, being that I run the company by the seat of my pants and don’t check my work, or just leave it alone.  Either way it didn’t look good.  In the end, everything worked out and my shareholder has been with me through great time and bad.  But it could have cost me a great business partner!

So, my point is check your work, and especially when it comes to the PrintFX module.  One of the great advantage to the module is the great pricing and the quick turnaround time.  We are able to provide this because we have eliminated a good portion of designers, sign offs, and time.  However, here are some additional things we have working for the PrintFX module…..the secret “business compliance.”  The one thing everyone overlooks is the small things.  “Did I accidentally change the logo?”  man that not going to be good it I did.  “Is the resolution of the image I uploaded going to be pixellated when i get my product.”  All of this is being remedied by the module, how well that I can’t tell you yet!  But, be looking out for a few really important changes in the near future.

Special thanks to uniwatchblog for the picture!

New floating interface!

I wanted to add a few comments about the new tools to the PrintFX module.  Our flash mad scientist Mitchum Owen with MiloDigital is building a insane new user interface for PrintFX.  Big props to Chris Hopper our Interactive Director for making this happen. The user interface has floating option boxes, this allows for better, and quicker changes to the objects.  You don’t have to click on tabs anymore which makes edits a lot quicker as well.  If you look really close you can see… yeah we added a duplicate tool.  You can not believe how awesome it is.    Trust me is only gets better from here!

Rename layers in the PrintFX module!

Renaming layers makes the module so easy to use the masking tool and organize.  More on that later!  The PrintFX module will be the greatest thing since sliced bread….