Hotcards, Full Color Printing In The Nation

Is there such thing as 'Republican' poster style?

I was poking around on TPM this morning – always a great source for campaign advertising news – when I came across an election poster from the McCain campaign.

Blogger Josh Marshall points out that the head and shoulders poking through the clouds seem to imply that McCain is running "a campaign to be elected God."

Intrigued, I immediately had to know where the poster came from. Some more digging around revealed that the Republican campaign – perhaps inspired by the poster printing of its Dem counterpart – is holding a poster design contest. Ten finalists have been chosen – McCain in the Clouds being one of them – and you can vote for your favorite on the campaign website.

Yes, we're still printing calendars.

What makes a great print calendar? It’s different for every individual. For some, calendars are something that grandmas use to remember when to take their ear medicine. For others, having a calendar that suits our needs perfectly is deeply, well-nigh-on cosmically important.

For me, a successful calendar must have three well-designed features:

• Space: enough to write notes in, while acknowledging that my day planner can do most of the heavy lifting.
• Visual appeal: It’s part of my environment, so my calendar has to be pleasing to the eye, and ideally, bring something fresh with every fresh month.
• Functionality: I’ve seen designers do a lot of really cool, strange things with calendars, but if it gets too complicated, you’ve lost me.

Here, for your organizational pleasure, are five beautiful, functional printed calendar designs that will keep you smiling on-schedule, all year round...

An often-overlooked element of print design.

I was just reading an excellent post over at Smashing Magazine that brought this subject to my attention. The post makes the point that although Tables of Contents are often skimmed over in the design process, there are a lot of beautiful, creative things you can do with that space.

Tables of contents grace the first pages of magazines, catalogues, booklets, and annual reports. Usually, they’re designed with a font and style that subtly shows compatibility with the rest of the printing, without drawing undue attention to itself. But why not draw attention to the table of contents?

Elsewhere in the print design world, we emphasize the importance of catching our audience’s attention immediately. Our goal is to do something that pops out and draws the eye almost against the will of the reader.

In catalogue and report publishing, the table of contents can be that attention-grabber. By putting in the time to create something unique, you have the potential to effectively sell the rest of the print offering.

Opinions, bumper stickers, not welcome.

An official memo sent out this week by New York Times standards editor Craig Whitney made a surprisingly intense statement against election campaign printing. In the memo, sent to Times staff, he wrote, "journalists have no place on the playing fields of politics."

Huh? And all this time, I thought journalism helped to shape and define the political climate. Silly me.

Times’ writers are asked to stay away from all election campaign printing: no bumper stickers, no buttons, no waving posters at rallies, and no yard signs. In other words: keep your opinions to yourself.

Whitney went so far as to follow up with a second memo adding that journalists should not put information about their political affiliations on blogs or Facebook profiles. The editor’s concern? That any such blogging or sign-waving would give a "false impression that the paper is taking sides."

Predictably, it didn’t take long for the interwebs to formulate a response somewhere along the lines of, "who are you kidding, Whitney? The Times is as blue team as a publication gets! We don’t need bumper sticker printing to tell us that!"

And more importantly, it seems to me that the whole concept of impartial journalism is more ideal than reality. Journalists aren’t information-conveying automatons, and attempting to perpetuate such an outdated illusion is hardly to Whitney’s credit.

Consumers want to be sure that it's all about the green, not the green.

A recent series of studies indicate that consumers may be feeling overwhelmed by the sudden wave of green printing, advertising, and product placement that has flooded the market over the last couple of years.

The transition has been dramatic. Much of the push behind eco-conscious living is about making change NOW, instead of waiting for things to get really bad. The problem, according to the studies conducted by the Shelton Group and Porter Novelli, is that so many new products and options are being pushed. Consumers feel that they don’t have the time or the budget to do them all, so why bother?

Have a great long weekend! And keep it red, white, blue, and GREEN all year round!

Proving, once again, that direct mail printing can be surprisingly controversial.

In Georgia, five Democrats are racing for the chance at a seat in the U.S. Senate. The primary election is on July 15th, and as such, candidate Vernon Jones sent out a statewide direct mail flyer this week as part of his print campaign.

The flyer itself is fairly standard: 6 x 11, two-sided, full color printing. The content, however, has got his fellow candidates, as well as presidential candidate Barack Obama’s campaign, up in arms.

On the front of the brochure, a cheering crowd is depicted with Obama and Jones in the foreground, both with mics in hand. The now-famous slogan, “Yes We Can!” is printed at the top of the image.

Hotcards welcomes you!

One of the biggest topics in the printing world is one we barely touch on in the Hotcards blog. That is, magazine print and design. I can’t really explain this lack except to say that it’s such a massive world unto itself that it seems daunting to cover it as well as everything else about full color printing.

That being said, we do print magazines and booklets here at Hotcards. We get to work with a lot of small, cool publications that print in limited runs, and it would be interesting to talk about that process now and again.

I was inspired to get into this topic by a post on print design over at the excellent design blog, Abduzeedo. The post got me looking through some awesome collections of book cover, magazine, and booklet design. It’s amazing how diverse magazine printing is – everything from art theory zines to corporate booklets can run through our printer – and yet, a common thread throughout is obviously the importance of visually arresting design.

Not actually run by gangs.

There’s a new Design Idea of the Week up, and it’s all about how businesses can collaborate on print advertising in order to build a sense of community. Products like multi-ad door hangers and postcards are great community-building tools, and by advertising collaboratively, businesses enjoy a very, very low bottom line.

What you probably didn’t know is that if you print with Hotcards, you’re already getting super low prices thanks to membership in a community: the gang-run printing community.

That’s right. You’re in a gang and you didn’t even know it! But don’t worry, this gang isn’t about any of that crazy ‘blood in, blood out’ stuff. And ‘gang-run printing’ doesn’t refer to printing run by gangs. In fact, it’s more about saving money, and doing something good for the environment.

Hotcards.com!

Check out the newest video from Hotcards full color printing! Now who wouldn’t want to print and design with such a talented, charismatic bunch?

My favorite thing about this video is that it shows off some of the print design work we’ve been doing lately. Everything from door hangers and direct mail, to restaurant menus and club cards get designed and printed at Hotcards. And ordered at Hotcards.com.