1. Keep your logo simple – an over complicated logo will appear harder to read the smaller it is, you also need to consider how your logo will look in other media’s i.e. sign-writing in cut vinyl
2. Do not add tone to your logo – once again, tone is impossible to replicate in cut vinyls, and may also appear differently if using the logo in black and white, or printed at lower resolution i.e. newsprint.
3. Do not use raster images – as someone who works with print you will be familiar with why we prefer using vector images or at least a minimum of 300dpi, otherwise you run the risk of the logo appearing pixelated when it is scaled up.
4. Your logo should be scalable – again, as above you need a logo that doesn’t lose quality when it is scaled up, think billboards, or large posters.
5. Do not use too many colours – the more colours you use, the more visually distracting the logo becomes, making it harder for the viewer to see what it actually represents.
6. Too many fonts kill the charm – at the most stick to two fonts, the ‘the 10 commandments of typography’ which you can find here does a good job of explaining why this rule is important.
7. Do not outline your logo – adding an outline or ‘stroke’ to your logo adds nothing, again its a visual distraction adding more noise.
8. Do not write on your logo – a seemingly obvious one, your logo should convey enough information in the text part of it, without having to add text to the logo itself.
9. Avoid putting the logo in a box – there shouldn’t be a reason for putting a box around your logo, it should be able to hold itself together well enough without needing a frame.
10. And lastly, flat doesn’t mean an icon – just because the current trend is ‘flat design’ doesn’t mean that it has to look like an app icon.

Credit to Designmantic for the original artwork

The post The 10 Commandments of Logo Design first appeared on Newman Thomson.

One other thing regarding colours to consider is that of black, for text a single colour black is perfectly fine. However if you are looking to use large areas of black a single colour black can appear a bit ‘greyish’ in hue, a common solution here is to use what’s known as a rich black, or 4 colour black. As the name would suggest, this is where a 100% K black is enhanced by the addition of the other 3 print colours. The usual CMYK breakdown for a rich black is C-50% M-50% Y-50% and K-100%.

PMS Colours, PMS is the abbrevation for Pantone Matching System. Simply put, the PMS is a way of guaranteeing the appearance of a colour over a variety of materials. Commonly used by very large brands who are represented across the globe, the PMS allows you to ensure continuity by rendering your chosen colour, identically, no matter where it is, what material it is on, or what process has been used to produce it. For example, Ford use Pantone 294C in their famous blue oval logo, this ensures that the specific blue is replicated exactly the same across the world, and across any materials (signage, print, clothing etc.) in which it features. However, most brands probably don’t need that sort of colour control (which can be fairly expensive), and a traditional CMYK breakdown will suffice. As always, if you want any more info regarding this or any other area of printing, do please get in touch, collectively we have centuries (probably) worth of knowledge which we’ll gladly impart.

The infographic below details what the main differences are between CMYK, RGB and Pantone colours:

Credit for original infographic to thelogocompany.net

The post Print colour profiles explained first appeared on Newman Thomson.

Credit Paper Leaf Design for the original artwork

The post Elements of Design – Info graphic first appeared on Newman Thomson.

Printing is often seen as an ancient invention, and relative to some things, e.g human flight, space travel, the internet, then it is. Print as we know it has been around for approximately 1,800 years, that’s around 100 years after the first ‘steam engine’ (The Aeolipile) had been described and most likely invented by the Hero of Alexandria. Print is also a relative newcomer in comparison to strung musical instruments and the first pyramids by over 2,600 years.

Click here, or the image below to see the full size version.

Credit – www.uprinting.com for original info graphic

The post A brief history of print – info graphic first appeared on Newman Thomson.

Digital vs Litho print

General notes:

Digital is more suitable for shorter runs and Litho for longer runs. We have already established that digital is more cost and time effective on shorter run jobs, and that the quality of print is pretty much equal to that of litho. So, what else differentiates the two then?

Digital tends to produce a single copy of a file, so if you have a 28pp self cover document of which you want 100 copies, a digital press will produce 100 collated copies of a 28pp document, which will then need binding, and any other finishing (trimming etc.).

A litho press would produce 100 copies of the first sheet (so OFC, IFC, OBC and IBC) then 100 copies of the next sheet, and so on, which would then need collating, followed by whatever finishing was specified by the client.

Litho printing requires plates being made to transfer the image to the paper, a digital press simply uses a file to print from much like you home desktop printer, though obviously on a totally different scale.

Downtime between jobs and set-up times are much less on a digital press.

Different stocks

Most litho presses can run down to around 90gsm stocks if you wanted them to, and up to 450gsm, the digital presses tend to run around 115gsm lowest and up to around 350gsm.

There are specific stocks designed for digital and litho printing, though increasingly more stocks are compatible across both methods.

DPI

This is where digital has an advantage, a digital press can produce decent quality images from a 150dpi file, a traditional litho press would need 300dpi minimum to create the same results. Whislt this doesn’t mean you can print web graphics at an acceptable level of quality, it is a little more forgiving.

Overprinting

It is worth considering that if you plan to overprint the job (i.e. it will be going through another printing process such as a desktop printer) then some digital press processes are not compatible as the image will be melted in the process.

Variable Data

This makes each print a unique print and as such is most suited to Digital printing. The use of this service will considerably increase the return on investment and response rate for mailing campaigns compared with the shotgun approach.

To learn more Wikipedia has this to say about digital printing.

The post Digital Vs. Litho Printing, what are the differences? Info Graphic first appeared on Newman Thomson.

If you want to know a bit  more detail about the kit we use to produce your jobs, such as our Heidelberg presses, then have a look at our plant list here, or if you want to learn a bit more about the differences between digital, and litho printing, check out this info graphic. You can find more out about our company history by clicking here, and you can find out information about our team members here. Got any more print related questions you’d like to ask us, then get in touch with us, we love talking about print. You can find all the different methods of getting in touch with us here. Is there anything relating to print that you would like to see an info graphic on, then please let us know. For more information regarding the world of print, you can check out our glossary of print terms which should give you all the terminology that you need.

Click on the image below to view our  Newman Thomson Info Graphic.

The post Newman Thomson Info Graphic first appeared on Newman Thomson.