Allegra Rolling Meadows - Printing

5 Cost-cutting Strategies for Mailing

Michael Tarpinian — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 22:05:00 GMT

In my last post, I gave you some tips on saving money on printing. Here are a few tips on saving money on direct mail marketing....

9 Tips to Save Money on Printing

Michael Tarpinian — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 00:51:00 GMT

There are lots of ways to save money on your printing costs. Here are a few easy ideas....

Why Pictures and Words Got Separated

Michael Tarpinian — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 20:43:00 GMT

We had quite a few people call and stop by and comment on our post Words and Pictures. In light of that, this is backfilling—a brief history of printing and why images were downplayed.

Early on in the history of printing, pictures went away. Grown up books, serious books did not have...

Words and Pictures

Michael Tarpinian — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 18:55:00 GMT

Putting images with text is an ancient idea. First came the pictures—think hieroglyphics or cave drawings. Alphabets grew out of pictorial representations. Words came from pictures. Then pictures were used with words to explain or add meaning or context to the words.

Along came printing and pictures were still there, but

Cost to Make Your Own Color Copies

Michael Tarpinian — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 01:32:00 GMT

I had an interesting discussion with a customer the other day. She asked me about my price for a couple of color copy projects. Even though both parties would have agreed that my print shop had a better solution based on quality, materials, and guaranteed completion time, we did not do her work because of cost.

It seems she is basing my price against her perceived internal copy cost....

So what is a QR Code?

Michael Tarpinian — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 18:29:00 GMT

A QR Code (QR stands for quick response) is a smart phone camera readable bar code that can store a website address, email address, phone number, or any other alpha numeric info.

QR codes are two-dimensional barcodes that, when scanned using a smartphone equipped with a camera and QR code reader app, deliver a Web page or other content. Although they may occupy a small amount of space on the printed page, each code can contain an enormous amount of data, including your destination URL and tracking information.

Paper— The Ultimate Green Resource

Michael Tarpinian — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 20:26:00 GMT

I get more comments (almost all favorable) on my current email signature than anything else I have written. SO, if you have not been fortunate enough to get an email from me, here is the end of it, in its entirety....

The End of Physical Books?

Michael Tarpinian — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 20:42:00 GMT

MIT Media lab founder Nick Negroponte said recently that physical books will be “dead” within five years. Bunkum.

Make Sense of Business Card Masters

Michael Tarpinian — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 23:05:00 GMT

Here we will explain how to use business card masters, or shells, to save money, time and increase quality. As we see it, that is the big three for our customers.

How does printing masters save money?

Recent Business Card Trends

Michael Tarpinian — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 10:29:00 GMT

We have noticed a few changes in the way people are designing and using business cards. They seem to be less formal these days and a little bit more friendly. Now that full color printing is quite common for business cards, you’re more likely to see full-color graphics and logos or photos on them. Another interesting trend is round cornered business cards. While we used to just die cut the round corners we now have a new machine that can do this quicker in smaller batches. Rounding all four corners is the most common but some people round just two or even one. Something else that is a small but growing trend is more like old-fashioned calling cards. It’s hard to call them business cards when they just contain personal information. Couples and families are getting them with their personal contact information and e-mail addresses on them and sometimes even their blogs listed on them. People are even buying them for their high school and college-age children. Since people seem to be networking ...